Minor Works -- 1 - Farmer Giles of Ham

[Bêthberry]

I'll back up a bit and start with the Introduction by Hammond and Scull, it being a serious bit of scholarly history concerning the text. Their information reminds us of how important Tolkien's oral storytelling to his children was in his development as a writer. Roverandom and Farmer Giles began as stories to entertain his children, as well of course as The Hobbit. (Tom Bombadil has a nod to the children's affairs as well.) As much as philology and the creation of languages inspired Tolkien, so also was the impulse of oral storytelling. Of course, as Hammond and Scull point out, Farmer Giles was developed far beyond this original oral piece of entertainment with its satire, but remembering Tolkien's original audience for his stories is helpful in understanding the power of his later tales.

Tolkien's Foreward satirises scholarly concerns at the time over the origins of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. King Coel is non other than a reference to the children's nursery rhyme about Old King Coel, who was a merry old soul, who called for his pipe and his bowl and his fiddlers three. There had been much scholarly ado trying to discover which historical character is referred to in the nursery rhyme but scholars came up empty handed (or dry penned?) Sir Walter Scott even joined the speculation There were attempts to link Coel with Arthur's legends. So all in all this little satirical reference shows Tolkien's own interest in the legends and possibly the mythology of his little island, an interest which produced what we now know as The Book of Lost Tales, while providing, significantly, a satirical slight on the study of nursery rhymes not as art or story or entertainment but as historical content
.