 First edition cover | |
| Author | J. R. R. Tolkien |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Pauline Baynes |
| Cover artist | Pauline Baynes |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's literature Fantasy fiction |
| Publisher | George Allen & Unwin |
Publication date | 20 October 1949[1] |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-04-823068-3 |
| Preceded by | "On Fairy-Stories" |
| Followed by | The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son |
Farmer Giles of Ham is a comicmedieval fable written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1937 and published in 1949. The story describes the encounters between Farmer Giles and a wilydragon named Chrysophylax, and how Giles manages to use these to rise from humble beginnings to rival the king of the land. It is cheerfullyanachronistic and light-hearted, set in Britain in an imaginary period of theDark Ages. It features mythical creatures, medieval knights, and primitive firearms.
Scholars have noted that despite the story's light-hearted nature, reflected in Tolkien's playful use of his professional discipline,philology, it embodies several serious concerns. The setting is quasi-realistic, being the area aroundOxford where Tolkien lived and worked. The story parodies multiple aspects of traditional dragon-slaying tales, and has roots in modern and medieval literature, from Norse myth toSpenser'sThe Faerie Queene. Its concern for the "Little Kingdom" embodiesTolkien's environmentalism, in particular his well-founded fears for the loss of the countryside ofOxfordshire and surrounding areas.
According to Tolkien's Foreword,Farmer Giles is not an original tale but a translation, from 'veryinsular Latin', of a compilation of old legends of the Little Kingdom. In token of this, the full subtitle is given as
Aegidii Ahenobarbi Julii Agricole de Hammo, Domini de Domito, Aule Draconarie Comitis, Regni Minimi Regis et Basilei mira facinora et mirabilis exortus, or in the vulgar tongue, The Rise and Wonderful Adventures of Farmer Giles, Lord of Tame, Count of Worminghall and King of the Little Kingdom
This presages the great number of Latin-based jokes throughout the story.[2]
Farmer Giles (Ægidius Ahenobarbus Julius Agricola de Hammo, "Giles Redbeard Julius, Farmer of Ham") is fat and red-bearded and enjoys a slow, comfortable life. A rather deaf and short-sightedgiant blunders on to his land, and Giles manages to send him away with ablunderbuss shot. The people of the village cheer: Farmer Giles has become a hero. His reputation spreads across the kingdom, and he is rewarded by the King with an unfashionable old sword.
The giant, on returning home, relates to his friends that there are no more knights in the Middle Kingdom, just stinging flies—actually the scrap metal shot from the blunderbuss—and this entices a dragon fromVenedotia, Chrysophylax Dives, to investigate the area. The terrified neighbours all expect the accidental hero Farmer Giles to deal with him.
The knights sent by the King to pursue the dragon turn out to be full of excuses not to do their duty. The villagers look to Giles to do something. The local priest finds that the old sword is Caudimordax ("Tailbiter"), meant specifically for killing dragons.
Giles sets out and meets Chrysophylax. The sword turns out to be able to fight almost on its own; Giles hits the dragon with the sword, damaging its wing so it cannot fly, and leads it through the town. It is made to promise to bring its treasure to the villagers, but it does not keep its word.
The king sends Giles and the knights to deal with Chrysophylax. The knights have never seen any dragon apart from their Christmas "Dragon Tail" cake made ofmarzipan. Chrysophylax kills them. Giles survives, and with his sword he masters the dragon and obtains part of the treasure. On his way home, he acquires the servants of the dead knights. Back at home, with servants and treasure, Giles becomes a powerful lord.
Farmer Giles of Ham was originally illustrated byPauline Baynes. The story has appeared with other works by Tolkien in omnibus editions, includingThe Tolkien Reader[3] andTales from the Perilous Realm.[4]
Tolkien dedicatedFarmer Giles of Ham to Cyril Hackett Wilkinson (1888–1960), a don (lecturer) he knew atOxford University; Wilkinson had encouraged Tolkien to go ahead with writing the story for the Lovelace Society atWorcester College.[5][6]
Tolkien, aphilologist, sprinkled philological jokes into the tale, including intentionally falseetymologies. The place-names are of places close toOx[en]ford includingOakley,Otmoor and theRollright Stones.[7] At the end of the story, Giles is made Lord ofTame, and Count ofWorminghall. The Tolkien scholarJohn Garth comments that the tale is "an elaborate false explanation for the name of the Buckinghamshire village of Worminghall".[8]
| Worminghall in the story | Worminghall, Buckinghamshire |
|---|---|
| "The hall of the Wormings", people descended from a man who tamed aworm (a dragon) | "Field of a man named Wyrma" |
The philologist and Tolkien scholarTom Shippey suggests that the Middle Kingdom is based on earlyMercia, since the Middle Kingdom's capital, "some twenty miles distant from Ham", could well beTamworth, once Mercia's capital.[9] Giles's break-away realm (the Little Kingdom) is based onFrithuwald's Surrey.[10]
The tale's Foreword states that the tale is "a translation"from "insular Latin" of events taking place "after the days ofKing Coel maybe, but beforeArthur or theSeven Kingdoms of the English".[11]
Another joke puts a question concerning the definition of blunderbuss to "the four wise clerks of Oxenford": "A short gun with a large bore firing many balls or slugs, and capable of doing execution [killing people] within a limited range without exact aim. (Now superseded, in civilised countries, by other firearms.)"[12] Tolkien had worked on theOxford English Dictionary, and the "four wise clerks" are "undoubtedly" the four lexicographersHenry Bradley,William Craigie,James Murray, andCharles Talbut Onions.[13][a] Tolkien then satirises the dictionary definition by applying it to Farmer Giles's weapon:[14]
However, Farmer Giles's blunderbuss had a wide mouth that opened like a horn, and it did not fire balls or slugs, but anything that he could spare to stuff in. And it did not do execution, because he seldom loaded it, and never let it off. The sight of it was usually enough for his purpose. And this country was not yet civilised, for the blunderbuss was not superseded: it was indeed the only kind of gun that there was, and rare at that.[12]
The Tolkien scholarTom Shippey comments: "Giles's blunderbuss ... defies the definition and works just the same."[14]
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Romuald Lakowski describesFarmer Giles of Ham as a "delightful, and even in places brilliant, parody of the traditional dragon-slaying tale."[15] The parody has many strands. The hero is a farmer, not a knight; the dragon is a coward, and is not killed, but tamed and forced to return his treasure.[15] Lakowski derives Chrysophylax both from medieval dragons and from comic stories contemporary with Tolkien, likeEdith Nesbit'sThe Dragon Tamers andKenneth Grahame'sThe Reluctant Dragon.[15] The story embodies a charter myth, in which Giles's descendants have a dragon on their crest because of his deeds. Further, it serves as a local legend, with mock etymologies of actual place-names.[15]
Giles's cowardly talking dog Garm is named forthe terrifying dog of the Norse underworld.[15][16] Giles's magicnamed sword may derive partly from Norse myth, too; the godFreyr had a sword that could fight by itself. As for the fight with the dragon, the wounding of the monster's wing echoes an episode inSpenser'sThe Faerie Queene. Other allusions may include the legend ofSaint George and the Dragon, as that dragon was brought back to the city, tamed, and led with the girdle of a maiden round its neck; and theVölsunga saga, as the dragon's cave sounds much likeFáfnir's.[15]
Alex Lewis, inMallorn, writes that Tolkien lamented the loss of the countryside in and aroundOxfordshire, which formed "the Little Kingdom" of the story. Tolkien loved nature,especially trees, and had what Lewis calls "well-founded" fears for the environment, "verg[ing] on the prophetic".[17] Lewis analyses the factors that were causing this loss. They included the growth in Oxfordshire's population in the 20th century (doubling between 1920 and 1960); the area'sindustrialisation byMorris Motors, and the concomitant increase in motor traffic in the city of Oxford; the building of roads, including theM40 motorway cutting across the countryside; and thesuburbanisation of Oxford ascommuters started to use the railway to allow them to live in Oxford but work in London. TheSecond World War increased the number of airfields in the area from 5 to 96, causing the Oxfordshire countryside to be "gutted".[17] Lewis states that Tolkien had hoped to write a sequel toFarmer Giles of Ham, but found thathis legendarium had "bubbled up, infiltrated, and probably spoiled everything", and that it was "difficult [in 1949] to recapture the spirit of the former days, when we used to beat the bounds of the L[ittle] K[ingdom] in an ancient car."[17] Tolkien was horrified by the change that motor traffic wreaked on Oxford, and the air pollution; he had given up his happy but dangerous driving, as depicted in his children's storyMr. Bliss, at the start of the war.[17]
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