Re: Tolkien and the OED


jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Mike Lyle wrote:
[...]
fantasy and RPG world.

Anymore, fairies have rocket-propelled grenades? Blimey! I'd like to
see that version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.


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.

I'd unhesitatingly here apply one of the Great Rules of Life: if Lyle
disagrees with Child, ally yourself firmly and instantaneously with
Child. Youthful mishearing (we had a record, not a visiting itinerant
bard), causing later misreading, allied with failure to think.

I began the Tolkien essay once, but my attention wandered and I never
got back to it: a pity, as I might have avoided the present solecism.

--
Mike.

.