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22. Not Just Because I Like Cooking and Eating!
Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Ned’s choice of topic: Smith of Wootton
Major. A short non-Middle-Earth novella published in 1967 and illustrated by
Pauline Baynes, Smith is a kind of a fairy tale literally about Faery, a realm
which only certain people can visit. Smith, indeed a blacksmith from a sort-of
medieval English town called Wootton Major, is one of those people, having
received a magical silver star in his youth as part of a major ceremony based
around the town’s Great Hall and its function as a place for fabulous feasts.
But while Smith alternates his adult life between work, home and hearth and
the visits to Faery he is able now to do, eventually there comes a time when
he needs to face the necessary decision to surrender the star for a newer
generation. Inspired by his unfinished preface about George MacDonald’s “The
Golden Key,” Smith was the last work Tolkien published in his lifetime, a
quietly entrancing story about artistry, time and the power of imagination.
What do the many then-unpublished papers and background material about the
story which emerged in later years say both about Smith itself and Tolkien’s
work as a whole? What does the function of religion—or rather, how it is not
directly portrayed in the story at all—have in both the story and in Tolkien’s
argument for how it should be interpreted? What are the potential touchstones
for his portrayal of the realm of Faery and the Elves who live there, who are
in many ways very different from his Middle-earth Elves? And what makes the
Master Cook Nokes such a satisfying antagonist—but not, as the story itself is
at pains to note, an irredeemable villain?
Show Notes.
Jared’s
doodle, a
lovely invocation of a key moment in the story.
Try a medieval goose
recipe as you choose!
One of the many reports on the newly announced cast
members for the Amazon production. TheOneRing.Net
did a bunch of individual profiles but you’ll have to dig through a bit for
those.
The Independent’s report on the apparent wrapping up of season 1.
Smith of Wootton
Major!
Again, if you want the fullest version of the story and its background, look
for Verlyn Flieger’s
edition.
More on George MacDonald, as well as the
text of “The Golden Key.”
Our Farmer Giles of Ham episode.
Jonathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell is
well worth your time. And once again, we’re all major
LeGuin fans here.
The Spielberg film in question is
Always.
Protestant work ethics,
Catholic guilt complexes,
they’re things!
We’ve mentioned the Kalevala before
but just to link again.
Blackfriars in Oxford.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ At the Earth’s
Core is of course dated nonsense. But it’s there.
Tolkien and Lewis, we all know the story. But if you
don’t.
Shel Silverstein’s The Giving
Tree.
Support us on Patreon.
View all episodes
By Jared Pechaček, Oriana Scwindt, and Ned Raggett
4.8
2929 ratings
Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Ned’s choice of topic: Smith of Wootton
Major. A short non-Middle-Earth novella published in 1967 and illustrated by
Pauline Baynes, Smith is a kind of a fairy tale literally about Faery, a realm
which only certain people can visit. Smith, indeed a blacksmith from a sort-of
medieval English town called Wootton Major, is one of those people, having
received a magical silver star in his youth as part of a major ceremony based
around the town’s Great Hall and its function as a place for fabulous feasts.
But while Smith alternates his adult life between work, home and hearth and
the visits to Faery he is able now to do, eventually there comes a time when
he needs to face the necessary decision to surrender the star for a newer
generation. Inspired by his unfinished preface about George MacDonald’s “The
Golden Key,” Smith was the last work Tolkien published in his lifetime, a
quietly entrancing story about artistry, time and the power of imagination.
What do the many then-unpublished papers and background material about the
story which emerged in later years say both about Smith itself and Tolkien’s
work as a whole? What does the function of religion—or rather, how it is not
directly portrayed in the story at all—have in both the story and in Tolkien’s
argument for how it should be interpreted? What are the potential touchstones
for his portrayal of the realm of Faery and the Elves who live there, who are
in many ways very different from his Middle-earth Elves? And what makes the
Master Cook Nokes such a satisfying antagonist—but not, as the story itself is
at pains to note, an irredeemable villain?
Show Notes.
Jared’s
doodle, a
lovely invocation of a key moment in the story.
Try a medieval goose
recipe as you choose!
One of the many reports on the newly announced cast
members for the Amazon production. TheOneRing.Net
did a bunch of individual profiles but you’ll have to dig through a bit for
those.
The Independent’s report on the apparent wrapping up of season 1.
Smith of Wootton
Major!
Again, if you want the fullest version of the story and its background, look
for Verlyn Flieger’s
edition.
More on George MacDonald, as well as the
text of “The Golden Key.”
Our Farmer Giles of Ham episode.
Jonathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell is
well worth your time. And once again, we’re all major
LeGuin fans here.
The Spielberg film in question is
Always.
Protestant work ethics,
Catholic guilt complexes,
they’re things!
We’ve mentioned the Kalevala before
but just to link again.
Blackfriars in Oxford.
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ At the Earth’s
Core is of course dated nonsense. But it’s there.
Tolkien and Lewis, we all know the story. But if you
don’t.
Shel Silverstein’s The Giving
Tree.
Support us on Patreon.
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