[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Before I proceed with this post's intended subject, I should like to share with you an excerpt from Letter #109 (31 July 1947), in which Tolkien offers a concise and convincing resolution to the debate over allegory and applicability. In my opinion, Bêthberry has almost certainly hit the nail on the head by suggesting that Tolkien was trying to walk a very fine line between on the one hand, debunking the more egregiously foolish interpretations that had been placed on his work, and on the other letting his readers know that he was not about to tell them what The Lord of the Rings means.

Perhaps this is why the following comments are not echoed so explicitly in the foreword to the second edition, which is that normally printed with the work today (more on that later). In any case, they allow a great deal more latitude for the term 'allegory' than the later foreword, while more fully explaining why his book should not be considered as such.

Of course, Allegory and Story converge, meeting somewhere in Truth. So that the only perfectly consistent allegory is a real life; and the only fully intelligible story is an allegory. And one finds, even in imperfect human 'literature', that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easily can it be read 'just as a story'; and the better or more closely woven a story is the more easily can those so minded find allegory in it. But the two start out from opposite ends. You can make the Ring into an allegory for our time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or mechanical does always so work. You cannot write a story about an apparently simple magic ring without that bursting in, if you really take the ring seriously, and make things happen that would happen, if such a thing existed.

That's quite enough allegory for me for one evening, so now I should like to provide an alternative to the foreword under discussion, if that isn't verging on the off-topic. I'm fortunate enough to have in my possession a copy of the first edition, the foreword to which I find in many ways to be more enjoyable than the later, more serious version. Bear with me: it's a long one.

This tale, which has grown almost to be a history of the great War of the Ring, is drawn for the most part from the memoirs of the renowned Hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo, as they are preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch. This chief monument to Hobbit-lore is so called because it was compiled, repeatedly copied, and enlarged and handed down in the family of the Fairbairns of Westmarch, descended from that Master Samwise of whom this tale has much to say.
I have supplemented the account of the Red Book, in places, with information derived from the surviving records of Gondor, notably the Book of the Kings; but in general, though I have omitted much, I have in this tale adhered more closely to the actual words and narrative of my original than in the previous selection from the Red Book, The Hobbit. That was drawn from the early chapters, composed originally by Bilbo himself. If 'composed' is a just word. Bilbo was not assidious, nor an orderly narrator, and his account is involved and discursive, and sometimes confused: faults that still appear in the Red Book, since the copiers were pious and careful, and altered very little.
The tale has been put into its present form in response to the many requests that I have received for further information about the history of the Third Age, and about Hobbits in particular. But since my children and others of their age, who first heard of the finding of the Ring, have grown older with the years, this book speaks more plainly of those darker things which lurked only on the borders of the earlier tale, but which have troubled Middle-earth in all its history. It is, in fact, not a book written for children at all; though many children will, of course, be interested in it, or parts of it, as they still are in the histories and legends of other times (especially in those not specially written for them).
I dedicate this book to all admirers of Bilbo, but especially to my sons and daughter, and to my friends the Inklings. To the Inklings, because they have already listened to it with a patience, and indeed with an interest, that almost leads me to suspect that they have hobbit-blood in their venerable ancestry. To my sons and my daughter for the same reason, and also because they have all helped me in the labours of composition. If 'composition' is a just word, and these pages do not deserve all that I have said about Bilbo's work.

For if the labour has been long (more than fourteen years), it has been neither orderly nor continuous. But I have not had Bilbo's leisure. Indeed much of that time has contained for me no leisure at all, and more than once for a whole year the dust has gathered on my unfinished pages. I only say this to explain to those who have waited for the book why they have had to wait so long. I have no reason to complain. I am surprised and delighted to find from numerous letters that so many people, both in England and across the Water, share my interest in this almost forgotten history; but it is not yet universally recognized as an important branch of study. It has indeed no obvious practical use, and those who go in for it can hardly expect to be assisted.
Much information, necessary and unnecessary, will be found in the Prologue. To complete it some maps are given, including one of the Shire that has been approved as reasonably correct by those Hobbits that still concern themselves with ancient history. At the end of the third volume will be found some abridged family-trees, which show how the Hobbits mentioned were related to one another, and what their ages were at the time when the story opens. There is an index of names and strange words with some explanations. And for those who like such lore in an appendix some brief account is given of the languages, alphabets and calendars that were used in the West-lands in the Third Age of Middle-earth. Those who do not need such information, or who do not wish for it, may neglect these pages; and the strange names that they meet they may, of course, pronounce as they like. Care has been given to their transcription from the original alphabets and some notes are offered on the intentions of the spelling adopted* But not all are interested in such matters, and many who are not may still find the account of those great and valiant deeds worth the reading. It was in that hope that I began the work of translating and selecting the stories of the Red Book, part of which are now presented to Men of a later Age, one almost as darkling and ominous as was the Third Age that ended with the great years 1418 and 1419 of the Shire long ago.

* There is a footnote at this point explaining some minor points of pronunciation that are covered in the Appendices.

*****

I find Tolkien very entertaining when he writes as translator and editor. I think that in the original foreword, although less is said in the way of guidance as to the book's meaning, one gets much more of a sense that this is intended to be an enjoyable story. The complicated details often beloved of fans are dismissed (although not so completely that they may be entirely overlooked) and the foreword itself becomes a part of the mythology, giving it shape and context and beginning, before even the prologue has been reached, to tell the story. The tributes to the Inklings and to his children therefore weave them in with the history of the text, making them almost a part of the story themselves. My time is short, so I shall leave you to make of this alternative (shall we say 'A'?) foreword what you will.

EDIT: My apologies to all those with whom I've just cross-posted. Hopefully I've managed not to break up the flow too much by taking so long to finish.