Tricon to międzynarodowy konwent o bardzo rozbudowanym programie. Na Tricon składają się trzy połączone imprezy: Eurocon + Parcon + Polcon (patrz niżej).

W trakcie konwentu swoją obecność zaznaczą też polscy tolkieniści i tolkienolodzy. Wynotowaliśmy z programu Triconu następujące punkty tolkienowskie (gdy tylko poznamy dokładny program, podamy też naszym Czytelnikom daty i godziny poszczególnych prelekcji):

• Od Bakshiego do filmowego Hobbita – adaptacje dzieł J.R.R. Tolkiena – Tomasz Gubała, Ryszard Derdziński (Tom Goold i Galadhorn) (26.08 godz. 14.00)
  
• Minas Tirith jako miasto symboliczne – Zofia Marduła (Cotsillë) (26.08 godz. 18.00)
  
• Panel: Życie, śmierć, długowieczność – dary i kary – Anna Adamczyk-Śliwińska, Michał Leśniewski, Agnieszka Sylwanowicz (Nifrodel, M.L., Evermind HS Took) (27.08 godz. 16.00)
  
• Prezentacja: Jarek Florczak (Elek Bregalad) Mokisfilm (27.08 godz. 16.00)
• Túrin i Edyp czyli o fatalizmie i tragiczności – Tadeusz Olszański (Halbarad Dúnadan) (27.08 godz. 18.00)
  
• “Droga wiedzie w przód i w przód”. Filmowo-książkowy konkurs tolkienowski – Dariusz Bielak, Sławomir Graczyk, Karolina Stopa-Olszańska (Melinir) (28.08 godz. 10.00)
  
• Tolkienowska „Mythopoeia” – Bóg, wiara i wolność? - Jakub Lichański (28.08 godz. 13.00)
  
• Co pływa w zupie u J.R.R. Tolkiena – Anna Adamczyk-Śliwińska (Nifrodel) (28.08 godz. 17.00)
  

Prelekcje w języku angielskim i czeskim:

• The Image of a Dragon in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and Ursula K. le Guin’s Earthsea – Agnieszka Tańczuk (Melinea) (29.08 godz. 13.00)
  
• The One Ring with Chinese Characteristics. Reception of The Lord of the Rings in contemporary China – Jakub Urbański (Conducator) (27.08 godz. 10.00)
  
• Samwise the Great – Maria Błaszkiewicz (27.08 godz. 11.00)

• Čaje z Hobittína – J.Boháč (27.08 godz. 15.00)
• Kreacja postaci Éowiny – Justyna Brzezińska (27.08 godz. 19.00)
  

• Lord of the Rings Quiz – Marcin Szklarski
• What LotR is about – Maria Błaszkiewicz, Justyna Brzezińska, Agnieszka Sylwanowicz (27.08 godz. 12.00)
  
• Ringers: Lord of the Fans – Christopher Garbowski (28.08 godz. 12.00)
• Orality and literacy in The Lord of the Rings – Bartłomiej Błaszkiewicz (28.08 godz. 14.00)
  

Z ostatniej chwili: w czwartek ok. godz. 18.00 na Rynku w Cieszynie rozpocznie się koncert zespołu Drużyna Trzeźwych Hobbitów.

Miło nam też donieść, że na stronie Triconu znaleźć już można projekt koszulki konwentowej, którego autorką jest Małgorzata Pudlik (”Smoczyca”; Sekcja Tolkienowska ŚKF) – odnośnik.

Eurocon to najważniejszy europejski konwent miłośników fantastyki, organizowany co roku w innym kraju. Pierwszy miał miejsce w Trieście we Włoszech w 1972 roku. Wtedy również została utworzona organizacja ESFS (European Science Fiction Society), która sprawuje pieczę nad Euroconem od początku jego istnienia. Od tego czasu Eurocon odbył się w wielu miejscach, między innymi trzy razy w Polsce: w Poznaniu w 1976, w Krakowie 1991, oraz w Gdyni w 2000. Czechy były gospodarzami Euroconu w 2002 w Chocieborzu. Eurocon 2010 jest łączonym przedsięwzięciem trzech fandomów: czeskiego, polskiego i słowackiego, jak również trzema równoległymi konwentami: Parconem, Polconem i Euroconem. W związku z tym Eurocon 2010 został nazwany Triconem.

Parcon to główny konwent fanów SF z Republiki Czeskiej i Słowacji, odbywający się od roku 1982. Po podziale Czechosłowacji nadal organizowany wspólnie przez fandom czeski i słowacki. W roku 2010 Parcon odbędzie się w Czeskim Cieszynie, a zorganizuje go ostrawski KLF (Klub Literární Fantastiky).

Polcon to ogólnopolski konwent fanów fantastyki, w założeniu największy i najważniejszy, organizowany od 1985 roku. W 2010 Polcon zostanie zorganizowany w Cieszynie przez Śląski Klub Fantastyki.

The Silmarillion Writers’ Guild celebrates their fifth birthday this year and invites all Silmarillion fans to join the celebration with their art and writing: Five years ago, Dawn and Uli invited all of their fandom friends to their new group, the Silmarillion Writers’ Guild. The SWG was originally intended as a discussion group and writers’ workshop for authors of Silmarillion-based writing, but it has grown well beyond our initial hopes and is now one of the most respected Tolkien archives on the web. In honor of the many members, mods, and volunteers whose hard work and talents have brought us to where we are today, our fifth birthday will look back and look forward, to what we have accomplished and what inspiration still lies within.

There will be two major components of our birthday celebration, themes and tokens. Members are welcome and encouraged to participate in one or both!

How to join the celebration? Details are on the birthday page.

To Westron-speaking readers: Click “Przeczytaj resztę wpisu” for the original text of interview placed in the second part of this article.

Mam 59 lat i wciąż piszę… właściwie swoje najlepsze kawałki. Nie pracuję zawodowo, uwielbiam Tolkiena z całego serca, co zmusza mnie do gardzenia interpretacją Jacksona… Zrobienie z Legolasa deskorolkowca było zbytnim przegięciem dla mnie!

Moja muzyka bierze się raczej z serca aniżeli głowy a wydaje mi się, że piosenki i poezja Tolkiena tak samo muszą być wypowiedziane i wyśpiewane na głos a nie jedynie przeczytane z książki. Ulubioną prywatnie interpretacją jest The Cottage Of Lost Play, gdyż łączy ona prywatne życie Tokiena z jego światem fantazji… może ci się to wydać dziwne, ale jestem pewien, że ów wspaniały człowiek uwielbia tę piosenkę!… tak jak uwielbia wszystkie moje interpretacje… ZAWSZE trzymam się jego perfekcyjnego zapisu i nie miałbym śmiałości, by wprowadzać zmiany…
Niestety jego córka Priscilla odmówiła mi zgody na nagranie mojego materiału gdyż zapatrzona jest w tradycję “klasyczną” i nie podziela wizji swego ojca. Muszę więc dalej działać we względnym ukryciu…
Pieśni spisane są we wspólnej mowie, więc “folkowe” interpretacje są jedynym słusznym wyjściem. Tolkien wiedział o tym doskonale – The Stone Troll napisany został na modłę tradycyjnej pieśni angielskiej The Fox And The Goose.

Pierwszy raz przeczytałem Tolkiena będąc nastolatkiem i zostałem oszołomiony tym, jak te wszystkie idee zdolne były pomieścić się w jednym umyśle!
Niektóre utwory wypłynęły w sposób naturalny podczas przygrywania na gitarze, lecz jedna lub dwie zajęły mi nieco więcej czasu. Szczególnie Cottage Of Lost Play i Fastitocalon. Byłem tak zdeterminowany by uchwycić The Cottage…, że spędziłem całe popołudnie próbując coś sklecić. Jednocześnie oglądałem jak mój synek bawi się z przyjaciółmi na drodze… To była ta magiczna chwila kiedy melodia “zaskoczyła” i jestem bardzo dumny z rezultatu. Kocham dźwięk wiolonczeli na której mój przyjaciel David grał w Fastitocalonie i chciałbym aby wszyscy muzycy wraz ze mną mogli ruszyć w trasę i nieść ludziom prawdziwą magię pieśni Tolkiena. Lecz jak już wspominałem wcześniej – jego córka Priscilla w ogóle “nie ogarnia” idei. Woli The Tolkien Ensemble i ich klasycystyczne podejście, które uważam osobiście za całkowicie chybione. Grałem raz na Oxenmoot na Uniwersytecie Oksfordzkim i widziałem jak dwójka z ekipy zarzyna wykonywany utwór… Nawet doczytywali słowa podczas śpiewania!
Jak widzisz jestem całkowicie przekonany co do słuszności moich aranżacji i czuję, że Tolkien jest ze mną. Dlatego nie dbam, co powiedzą inni… Stworzyłem te rzeczy z miłości a nie dla pieniędzy, a czuję, że wielu wykorzystuje Tolkiena dla zaspokojenia własnych ambicji… Oby zgnili w Mordorze!!!

Original Text:

I’m 59 years old and still writing….some of my best stuff actually. I am unemployed, love Tolkien with a passion that leads me to despise Jackson’s interpretation…. to make Legolas skateboard was several steps too far for me!
My music comes from the heart rather than the head and Tolkien’s songs and poetry seem the same to me….they need to be spoken and sung upon the air rather than read in a book.
The personal favourite that I have interpreted is The Cottage Of Lost Play as it links Tolkien’s personal life with his fantasy world….it may sound strange to you but I just know that the great man loves it!…..as he loves all my interpretations…. I ALWAYS keep to his perfect script and would not have the audacity to change it….
Unfortunately, his daughter Priscilla has refused me permission to record the material as she is steeped in “classical” tradition and does not share her father’s vision so I must continue to perform in relative obscurity!…… the songs are in the common tongue so “folk” interpretations are the only way to do them. Tolkien was well aware of this… The Stone Troll is actually written to the pattern of a traditional English song “The Fox And The Goose”.

I first read Tolkien in my late teens and remain astounded by the wonder…how all those ideas fit in one head is amazing!
Some of the songs flowed out in a natural way within minutes on my guitar but one or two took a little longer….noteably “Cottage Of Lost Play” and “Fastitocalon”. I was so determined to capture “The Cottage” that I spent the afternoon trying to find the way through while watching my young son playing over the road with his friends… magical moments when I managed it and I’m very proud of the song. I love the cello my friend David played on Fastitocalon and I wish all the musicians and myself could have toured and brought the true magic of Tolkien’s songs to many people but as I said before…his daughter Priscilla did not “get it” at all.
She prefers The Tolkien Ensemble and their classical approach which is entirely inappropriate as far as I am concerned. I played at an Oxenmoot at Oxford Univesity once and saw two of the group as they butchered one of the songs….they even read the words as they sung!
As you see I am totally convinced about my interpretations and I feel Tolkien is with me in this so I don’t care what others say…I created the works for love not money and I feel that many just use Tolkien to further their own ambitions…. may they rot in Mordor!!!!

Ściągnij kartę KWIECIEŃ 2010 w pdf!

In Westron: We present the Elendili Calendar page for April 2010. Note that we compare there our Gregorian dates with the Imladris (Rivendell) Elvish calendar, with the reckoning of the Shire Hobbits and with the Reunited Kingdom calendar. Our April artist is Maciej “Isilion” Wygnański with his artwork entitled A Hobbit (see more of his artwork on Deviantart).

Download APRIL 2010 card w pdf!

Zwracamy uwagę na niektóre ciekawe nazwy kalendarzowe. Hobbickie Rethe (”marzec”) pochodzi od staroangielskiego Hrēðmōnað, gdzie pierwszy człon miałby być imieniem wiosennej bogini germańskiej. Astron (”kwiecień”) pochodzi od staroangielskiego Ēastron. Eostra (inaczaj Ostara) to wiosenna bogini germańska. We Wschodniej Ćwiartce i w Bree “kwiecień” nazywano jeszcze inaczej – Chithing. Termin ten pochodzi od staroangielskiego cīðing ‘kiełkowanie’.

Ściągnij kartę MARZEC 2010 w pdf!

Read the same in Westron (English)… We present the Elendili Calendar page for March 2010. Note that we compare there our Gregorian dates with the Imladris (Rivendell) Elvish calendar, with the reckoning of the Shire Hobbits and with the Reunited Kingdom calendar. Our March artist is Tomasz “Saso” Kowal with his artwork entitled Orodruin.

Download MARCH 2010 card in pdf!

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.

New data indicate that the German spelling of the name Tolkien could be the original one, and the form Tollkuehn (Tollkühn) appeared later. We also know that the name used to appear (and still appears) in many forms: Tolkien, Tolkin, Tolkyn, Tollkien, Tollkiehn, Tolkuehn etc. Actually, it is obvious that on the one hand, such alternations came into existence as a result of lack of one well-established convention of putting local pronunciation differences in writing, and on the other hand – as a consequence of mistakes made while copying original manuscripts. But we will never get to know how these names were pronounced in East Prussia in the 15th, 17th or even 19th centuries, or whether any of the above-mentioned word forms may have come from a typographical error. It would be worth finding out about changes that have recently taken place in German spelling (all the more so because the ‘official’ German spelling is based on High German, which differs markedly from Low German), since the alternations Tolkien/Tolkin/Tolkyn seem to have come from the changes in the notation system, and not in the pronunciation of words (cf. the Polish forms: ojciec/oyciec/oiciec ‘father’ or Maria/Marja/Marya ‘Mary’). And similarly, words that we may treat as different forms of the same notation system are: Tolkemtt, Tolmitt, Tolcomith, Tolkemit, Tolkemythe, Tolkemite.

Such alternations can be said to have taken place not only in German-speaking countries, but also in England. In the ninetieth-century census records we can find the following forms: Tolkien, Tolkins, Tolkin or even Tonkien (as was the case in 1901 with the surname of Mabel Tolkien and her sons, whose first names were written down as John and Hilaiy). There is, however, no doubt that the name Tolkien comes from East Prussia (though not necessarily from Warmia/Ermeland). To the premisses I have already mentioned I will add one more: 24 people named Tolkien and born (or baptized) between 1684 and 1874 in Schönwalde (in present-day Yaroslavskoye, northeast of Kaliningrad) and 25 more living at a similar time in different villages and towns of Prussia (not including the ones with the root tolk). That doesn’t mean, however, that the ancestors of J.R.R. Tolkien lived in East Prussia before they moved to England; they might as well live in Leipzig, Stralsund, or Berlin.

What could the origin and original meaning of the name/surname Tolk(ien/iny) be? I find the hypothesis about its connection with the Prussian word *tulki (‘interpreter’) bold, all the more so because the word itself cannot be proved to have come from Prussian (as indicated by an asterisk), and we know very little about this language. Even if such a word had existed (although I cannot imagine how Vasmer would come to provide a historical justification for the presence of a Russian borrowing in Dutch, and in Old Norse in particular), this is no proof that any names preserved a few centuries later can be derived from it. This is – and will always be – a mere hypothesis.

The earliest known male ancestor of J.R.R. Tolkien was his great-grandfather, George William Tolkien (1784-1840). That he might have been born in the Parish of St Bartholomew in London is just a guess, yet he did live and die in Islington, a district in London. His date of birth is also doubtful – it seems to have been based on the information about his age at the moment of death. We don’t know whether it was George William or his father that came from Germany. As far as further inquiries are concerned, an important clue is that the Tolkien family members were connected with music for generations – they were upright and grand piano manufacturers; they busied themselves with the tuning of the instruments and with the printing and teaching of music etc. We can therefore guess that it was their occupation in Germany (so they were townsmen) and that the then growing interest of the English middle class in performing music at home resulted in their moving to London.

In 1805, G.W. Tolkien married Elisa Lydia Murell, who bore him at least seven children (or maybe even more, judging by the fact that their sixth child was named Septimus, i.e. the Seventh). His first child, born in 1805, was named George William. His son was born in 1832 and was also named George William Lowe. This recurrence of names of (by the way) typically German origin is a significant fact – if we managed to find a Tolkien with these names, living in the first half of the 18th century in Germany, there’s a real chance that he also was the ancestor of “our” Tolkiens.

The second son of G.W. Tolkien was John Benjamin Tolkien, the grandfather of J.R.R. Tolkien. His fourth son was Henry Tolkien (1816-1885), a well-known piano manufacturer, who probably continued to run the family business, as he lived in Islington. His company’s upright and grand pianos are of average quality, but they have come up for auction to this day, and seem to be highly valued. (By the way, in the middle of the 19th century there were around 600 piano manufacturers in England.)

John Benjamin Tolkien (1807-1896) was twice married. In 1836, he married Jane Holmwood, and they had four children, including John Benjamin Jr. (1845-1853), who may have been buried in the Bunhill Fields Cemetery, in Islington. We don’t know when Jane Tolkien died, nor when J.B. Tolkien moved with his daughters to Birmingham. In 1856, he married Mary Jane Stowe; the couple had eight or nine children. The oldest of them was Arthur Reuel Tolkien.

At that time there lived in Birmingham another John Benjamin Tolkien (1846-1883). He was a journalist and lived there with his wife Agnes and daughter Beatrice. The British census records of the time contain two more J.B. Tolkiens, who lived between 1753 and 1819, and between 1788 and 1859. The recurrence of the names shows that the two men were related: could the latter of them have been G.W. Tolkien’s brother, and the former – their father or paternal uncle? This, however, cannot even be thought to be a hypothesis; it is a mere guess.

There arises an interesting question about the origin of the name Reuel, which appears in the Tolkien family. It is never found in the earlier records; J.R.R. Tolkien’s father was the first to have received this name. It is a biblical name and means “friend of God”. J.B. Tolkien was a Nonconformist (possibly a Baptist), one of the group of people who often named their children after biblical figures, including some unpopular names. We can only guess why the name Reuel was chosen by Arthur Tolkien’s father. Maybe following the death of his first-born he wanted for God to provide special care for his next son (similarly, there is a tradition in Poland of giving the second or third name Maria to males). By giving this name to both of his sons, Arthur Reuel Tolkien made it function as a nickname.

Warsaw, January 2010

Tadeusz A. Olszański
Translated by Jarosław “Noatar” Schramel

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.

The inscription on the stone says:

Frank Tolkien
born July 28th 1864
died April 24th 1867
Howard Charles Tolkien
born December 27th 1866
died October 27th 1867
The beloved children of
John Benjamin and Mary Jane Tolkien
of Handsworth

Also
Arthur Reuel Tolkien
their son
who died at Bloemfontien, South Africa
February 15th 1896
aged 38 years

Also the above named
John Benjamin Tolkien
who died August 1th 1896
aged 89 years

Also of
Mary Jane Tolkien
who died February 13th 1915
aged 81 years
Nearer my God to Thee

Also
Wilfrid Henry Tolkien
who died August 8th 1938
aged 68 years.

All the indications are that the family of J.R.R Tolkien and his biographers know nothing about the existence of this grave, if in the genealogical tree of the descendants of J.B. Tolkien (which can be found in J.R.R. Tolkien. Companion and Guide) there is no mention of the date of death of Wilfred Tolkien, whereas the dates of birth and death of Frank and Howard Tolkien are written with a question mark and in part incorrectly. Moreover, they are in ignorance of the fact that Arthur Reuel Tolkien’s gravestone can be found in England (and that it looks seriously neglected).

Key Hill Cemetery is located near the Jewellery Quarter, in the south of the Hockley area of Birmingham. It is – together with the nearby Warstone Lane Cemetery – the oldest ‘independent’ cemetery in the city (earlier, there were only churchyards there). Key Hill opened in 1936. It was a so-called Nonconformist cemetery: only non-Anglicans were buried there (members of the Church of England found their resting place in Warstone Lane). The tombstone of J.B. Tolkien’s family is situated near the main entrance on Icknield Street, just before the second intersection and the corner with the catacombs.

Tadeusz A. Olszański
Translated by Jarosław “Noatar” Schramel

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:

• Relatives of the Tolkiehn family lived in East Prussia (German: Ostpreußen), which after 1945 was divided in such a way that part of it forms present-day Warmian-Masurian Province, and the rest belongs to the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia;
  
• Linguistically, that historic land once inhabited by the Baltic* Prussians had since the beginning of the 13th century been part of the Low German language area (where Low Saxon and Low Franconian dialects were spoken; in the Middle Ages, their users were settlers brought to this area by the Teutonic Knights. Dutch also emerged from Low German). In East Prussia, Old Prussian and Polish dialects of Masovia were spoken. All of those language layers had an influence on personal and place names of East Prussia;
• Prof Tolkiehn claims that according to his family’s tradition, his surname was changed from Tolkien to Tolkiehn around 1800 (he holds that in his family archives there exist notes made by a member of his family, who Germanised the name, together with an exact date);
• According to Tolkiehn, the name Tolkien is typical only of the area of East Prussia, as it comes from the language of the Baltic Prussians. Many of the families living in this area bear last names ending with the suffix -ien (e.g. Leptien, Monien), but the meaning of this suffix is – in the Professor’s view – not thoroughly examined. What is clear, however, is the first part of the name – Tolk. It is believed – as we have already established in the first part of our inquiry – to derive from Prussian, and is translated as “interpreter”, that is a person, who in the Middle Ages was able to do trade and talk in various languages of Teutonic Prussia (and who, in particular, spoke Prutzisch/Prūsiskai, i.e. Old Prussian, and Middle Low German);
• Nowadays, a whole range of surnames already referred to (from Tolkien through different forms of Tolkiehn) includes names that are rarely met with, and are especially popular in the vicinity of Berlin, Hamburg and other cities of northern Germany, where after WWII the so-called Expellees were sent to live (those were Germans expelled from the territories that Germany lost after 1945);
• Prof Dr Günther-Ulrich Tolkiehn failed, however, to find any genealogical links between his relatives and the Tolkiehn families from Lower and Upper Saxony, from whom comes the family of J.R.R. Tolkien.

It would certainly be vital for our research to establish in which archive sources, period of German history, federated states, and in which form the surname Tolkien appeared for the first time. If the “Prussian theory” was proved true, we would have to examine a form/forms of the proper name (and then of the surname), which started to appear in Prussia as early as the 14th century. According to linguists like Max Mechov, it is from the Prussian *tulki (‘interpreter’) that such proper names can be derived as Tuleke (1344, sołtys [mayor] of Klonowken/Klonówki near Starogard Gdański), Tolleke (1350, komtur [commander] of Elbląg), Tulicke (Sambia), Tullike (Wehlau/Welawa District in the present-day Kaliningrad Oblast), Tulke (an official of the Crown Treasury in Nehmen), Tolike (Sambia), Tolicke (1401, Warmia), Tolk (1419, Warmia),  Tolck (Sambia, a Prussian peasant), Tölke (Schalwe/Sławno), as well as the surnames Tolk, Tolck, Tolks, Tollkien, Tollkiehn, Tolckien, Tolkin, Tollkühn, Tolket, Tolkemitt, Tolkmitt, Tolkemitz, Tolcomith, Tolksdorfer, Tolksdorff, Tulke, Tulkini.

With all of these proper names are connected place names of Prussian (or, more specifically, Warmian-Masurian) origin: Tulkin/Tolken (1315, Crown Treasury Office in Nehmen, Mohrungen/Mrągowo District), Tolkynen (1415, Rastenburg/Kętrzyn District; contrary to the post-war sources in Poland, the name Tolkynen, used with reference to the village Tolksdorf/Tołkiny, appeared only in the 15th century, and not until 1938, the name itself proving the post-war “baptism” of the village, which had been called Tolksdorf for most of its history), Tolksdorf, Tolkemite (1337, Elbing/Elbląg District; Tolkmicko in Polish), Tolkemit, Tholkemyte (1425, Osterode/Ostróda District).

The group of surnames being of great interest to us was still known in Prussia just before World War Two. For instance, Fischhausen address book of East Prussia (present-day Primorsk in the Kaliningrad Oblast) mentions the names: Tolk, Tolkiehn, Tolkien, Tolkmit, Tolksdorf, Toll, Tollkiehn, Tollkühn. Nowadays, these names are especially found in the North of the Federal Republic of Germany (e.g. in the vicinity of Hamburg), where the Germans expelled from the territory of the former East Prussia migrated after WWII.

According to our findings, the earliest etymology of the name Tolkien refers us to the Prussian language (of the extinct Baltic languages). Below, you will find the way in which, I believe, the name has evolved:

Prussian: Tulki ‘interpreter’
↓
Old Low German Tolk(e)
↓
German (with Slavic suffix?) Tolkin, Tolkien
↓
Germanized Tolkiehn
or
Secondary etymology (”folk etymology”): Tollkühn (related to the German adjective tollkühn, meaning ‘daring, foolhardy, madly bold’)

What we need is a comprehensive survey of the library holdings. There are many interesting German dictionaries, onomastic and topomastic studies and atlases. Their contents, however, sometimes stands in contradiction to one another; for example, in Die deutschen Familiennamen geschichtlich, geographisch, sprachlich (Halle, Berlin 1933) the authors, Albert Heintze and Paul Cascorbi, derive the surname Tolkien from the adjective tollkühn (being the theory proved by J.R.R. Tolkien), and in Max Mechow’s Deutsche Familiennamen als prussischer Herkunft (Dieburg/Darmstadt, 1987), it is derived from the Prussian word *tulki (the theory refuted by the Professor in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, no. 349). The Online Dictionary of Middle High German (i.e. of the language of medieval Germany) contains two word-forms that illustrate this dilemma:

• tolke, tolc ‘translator/dolmetsch, interpreter/interpres’; it contains examples of the language used in Prussia: der hemelesce tolke Hans; Virgilius der ist ein tolc; di dritte rede ist ein tolk.
• tol-küene adjective which means ‘imprudent/temerarius’

Young Ronald Tolkien was already interested in the etymology of his last name as a student of King Edward’s School in Birmingham and of Oxford University. It was in those times that he worked on the theory of “mad boldness”  (and it is obvious that he was more inspired by the word tollkühn than by the less exciting Dolmetsch) which resulted in his creation of the following pseudonyms (more can be found in the topic “Pseudonimy J.R.R. Tolkiena” in the Elendili Forum): Ragnald Hrædmóding (an Old-English word hrædmód means ‘rash, impulsive, quick-tempered’), Ruginwaldus Dwalakōneis (from the Gothic *dwalakōneis = German: toll-kühn), Arcastar in Quenya (the same meaning) or the English Rashbold (being a synonym of the name).

In the next part of our inquiry, we will try to answer the question about the earliest ancestors of J.R.R. Tolkien; we will trace the history of the Tolkien/Tolkiehn/Tollkühn families in Saxony (and determine whether it refers to Lower or Upper Saxony) and try to find the oldest document with the name of the Tolkien family written in it. One day we will surely visit Tołkiny in Warmian-Masurian Province with cameras in our hands and see the land the Tolkien family may come from…

To be continued…

Translated by Jarosław “Noatar” Schramel

__________________________

* The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family: Old Prussian, Sudovian (also known as Jatvingian), Lithuanian, Latvian, and their dialects. They are also referred to as the Aestian languages (derived from the name of an ancient people – the Aestii).

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‘).

In Germany, we meet people with the last names “Tolkien”, “Tolkiehn”, and “Tollkiehn”. The map below shows a distribution of the name “Tolkien” all over the Federal Republic of Germany (click on the map to enlarge it):

LINK

However, German linguists and genealogists propose other explanation for the origin of the writer’s last name, and locate its beginnings in the Prussian (Baltic) linguistic area. It is described both by Georg Gerullis in his work Die altpreußischen Ortsnamen (’The Old Prussian place names’; o.V., Berlin/Leipzig 1922, p. 184) and by Max Mechow in his Deutsche Familiennamen als prussischer Herkunft (Tolkemita, Dieburg 1994, p. 99). Today, the above-mentioned area is situated in Poland, and it is represented by a small village in Masuria. Since 1945, the village has been known by the Polish name of Tołkiny.

Tołkiny is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Korsze, within Kętrzyn County, Warmian-Masurian Province. (Before the World War Two, the village was called Tolksdorf and lay within Rastenburg County in  Ostpreußen, i.e. East Prussia.) The village lies approximately 10 km (6 m) northwest of Kętrzyn (before the War called Rastenburg in German, and Rastembork in Polish), not far from the Regional Road 592 (from Kętrzyn to Bartoszyce). The former name of the village, Tolksdorf, had been created from the last name of a noble family of Prussian origin – the Tolk family. It had been written down in the existing documents as Tolksdorf (1410), Tolkynen (1440), or Dolksdorf (1528). In the earliest period, Tołkiny are believed to have been a Prussian village, lying on the edge of the Krakotin Forest; that area had previously been inhabited by the Prussian tribe of Barts (in the former Diocese of Warmia – to learn more about Bartia, click here). Remains of the Forest have stood the test of time, and are situated south of the village, near a hamlet  Krakocin (previously called Krakotin) and round the Tołkiny Lake. As for the location of the village itself, little can be said for sure; for a nearby village of Starynia (Altendorf in German) was known in the Middle Ages as Alt-Tolksdorf (and Neu-Tolksdorf in 1698). One can therefore presume that the first residence of the Tolk family was located somewhere around present-day Starynia, whereas Tołkiny was not established until the foundation of the new village on the Prussian or Kulm Law. In the foundation document issued on February 10, 1344, by the Commander of Balga, Gottfried von Linden, there appears, among others, the name of Mathes (Matheus) Tolc. (More about the history of Tołkiny can be read here.)

The analysis of the names from before 1945 shows that already in the 15th century there functioned in Masuria the name *Tolkyn (the German form Tolkynen being the plural of this name). It is from this word that German historians derive the name Tolkien.

To be continued…

Translated by Jarosław “Noatar” Schramel

Below a photo from the  Tołkiny/Tolksdorf area.

Ściągnij kartę LUTY 2010 (w pdf)

Read the same in Westron (English)… We present the Elendili Calendar page for February 2010. Note that we compare there our Gregorian dates with the Imladris (Rivendell) Elvish calendar, with the reckoning of the Shire Hobbits and  with the Reunited Kingdom calendar. Our February artist is Leonid Korablev (Russia) with his artwork entitled Ambar.

Download FEBRUARY 2010 page (in pdf)