Re: Tolkien and the OED

Mike Lyle wrote:
Donna Richoux wrote:
....

Tolkien wrote an essay entitled "Faerie" about the role of fantasy and
magic in our imaginations, or some such -- I read it around age 16 and
it didn't stick with me.

The title was "On Fairy Stories"
<http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf>, but
he mentions Faerie a lot. Little from the essay has stuck with me
except the word "eucatastrophe".

I'm quite sure that list is not words *created* by Tolkien, nor did he
necessarily work on the OED entry -- I think they're just words
associated with him in different ways.

What a shame! I was talking to one of the authors last night, and could
have asked. AIUI, "Faerie" was originally a place, or a sphere of
existence: the place where fays lived.

To my annoyance, "fay" seems to be losing out to the eggcorn "fey" in
the fantasy and RPG world.

One of the ballads (Tam
o'Shanter?) uses the expression "fairy elf-land": "See you yonder
bonnie road..? That's the way to fairy elf-land..."
....

No hits on ballads for "fairy elf-land" (with or without the hyphen),
but "Thomas Rymer and the Queen of Elfland" has

'And see not ye that bonny road,
Which winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Whe[re] you and I this night maun gae.'

<http://www.bartleby.com/40/15.html>

Of course Child might have misheard, and there must be other versions.
Incidentally, Tolkien quotes this stanza in his essay.

--
Jerry Friedman

.

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