Chapter 5
The Storyteller
Ronald was never well enough to return to the front lines of the war. He felt strongly that he had a duty to keep his promise to his friends who had not survived. He wanted to create something lasting. He started writing stories about his fantasy world. His first story was called “The Fall of Gondolin.” It was about a city where magical elves lived, and its destruction at the hands of the evil Morgoth and his armies. Ronald’s elves were not cute little men. They were tall, beautiful, and wise. “The Fall of Gondolin” was full of romance, betrayal, and clashing armies—just like Beowulf, the epic poem that he loved so much.
Ronald and Edith returned to Oxford, where he had found a job working on the Oxford English Dictionary. It was the perfect job for Ronald, who had always loved words so much. Ronald also worked as a tutor, helping many of the new women students who were now going to Oxford.
On November 16, 1917, he and Edith had a son, John. The family took long walks together in the woods. On one walk, Edith started dancing under the trees. It inspired Ronald to write a story about a man, Beren, who falls in love with an elven princess named Lúthien. Since Lúthien was an elf, she would live forever—she was immortal. Beren was mortal. He was a simple human who would die one day. It was called “Tale of Tinúviel.”
In the summer of 1920, Ronald was offered a teaching position at Leeds University in England. That October, the Tolkiens’ second son, Michael, was born.
Edith liked life at Leeds. She made friends with the wives of the other professors. Ronald and another teacher, E. V. Gordon, translated the ancient poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight together.
Ronald and Gordon started a club at Leeds. Its members were professors and students who loved to read Old Icelandic sagas—stories from northern Europe in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. They called themselves the Viking Club. They made up songs in Anglo-Saxon. Ronald became one of the most popular professors at Leeds.
In 1924, Ronald and Edith had another son, Christopher, who was named after Christopher Wiseman. The next year, Ronald got word that a teaching position had opened up at his old university, Oxford. It was a professorship in Anglo-Saxon. Ronald was thrilled to get the job.
During his last summer at Leeds, Ronald took his family to the seaside on the northern coast of England. One day Michael lost a toy dog. To make him feel better, Ronald wrote him a story about a toy dog named Rover. The little story grew and grew to include a wizard, a dragon, a sand-sorcerer, and a trip to the moon. He gave the story the heroic name of Roverandom.
