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The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún · The Fall of Arthur · The Story of Kullervo · The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun After his victory Giles had Chrysophylax kept in the parson's tithe-barn. This earned him the title "Dominus de Domito Serpente" (or in the vulgar Lord of the Tame Worm). A lord Giles had become, but soon he advanced to Earl, and then to Prince, and finally to King in his own right. Giles was crowned as Ægidius Draconarius of the Little Kingdom but was known more often as Old Giles Worming. Così mi ritrovo tra le mani un racconto favolistico/folkloristico che Tolkien penò molto a far pubblicare e qui lo ritroviamo rimaneggiato, "aggiustato", allungato per poterlo rendere appetibile per la vendita. The 50th Anniversary Edition was published in 1999, edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. A quest cannot be complete without a hero, the role which Farmer Giles fills. Like Tolkien's hobbit heroes Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, Giles is a common man who seems unlikely to improve his station in life, much less defend an entire kingdom against a dragon and later become its king. Giles's first heroic act is actually an accident: "scared out of his wits," he pulls the trigger on his blunderbuss and sends the giant off grumbling with a sore nose. By the end of the tale, however, Giles has grown so much in courage and power that he can face a dragon without fear and rebuff his own king. Yet, as a Tolkien hero, his growth is not surprising. Because he is close to the soil (like the hobbit heroes), he seems to be morally superior to all those around him; certainly he is superior to the King and all his court.
The next day Giles learned that he was the owner of Caudimordax, the famous dragon-slaying sword. Soon, with much goading by the parson and the miller, as well as the rest of the village of Ham, Giles was off on his grey mare with his cowering dog, armed with a thrown-together suit of metal rings and Caudimordax.Defending his home from a giant sends Giles on a thoroughly unwanted and (only in his mind) unpleasant fairytale adventure, to get rid of a dragon that's been menacing the countryside and that none of the local knights would like to try out. Sure, he gets a magic sword to help him out, but he's taking the whole thing with such nonchalant, grudging acceptance that you'd almost believe he could take care of the quest with nothing more than a garden hoe: the only thing the sword does is to take all the genuine but believable challenges he could have faced, and reduces them into a comedic farce of utter humiliation to the dragon, Chrysophylax, who until today thought knights were just a fairy tale. It could've been tense and gripping, had Tolkien chosen to write it in a different (more Hobbit-like) way, but he went down a different path and the end result is downright hilarious instead. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets. Il Cacciatore di Draghi è una favola che Tolkien decise di inventare e raccontare ai suoi figli per intrattenerli, per farli fantasticare, ma anche per lasciarli riflettere sulla storia antica, di tempi ormai lontani e perduti, dove il folklore locale, britannico, si intrecciava con la mitologia e le canzoni popolari orali, tramandate di famiglia in famiglia, di generazione in generazione. The Annotated Hobbit · The History of The Hobbit · The Nature of Middle-earth · The Fall of Númenor
The giant, as it turns out, is both nearly deaf and nearly blind, and he leaves a path of destruction in his wake that includes the utter flattening of Giles's favorite cow, Galathea. His lumbering approach awakens and panics Giles' dog, Garm, who can talk; Garm, at some risk to himself, and with the help of Giles's wife Agatha, inspires Giles to action. Farmer Giles is able to ward off the giant by shooting him with a very primitive form of firearm called a blunderbuss. His blunderbuss shot hits the giant in the face (mostly by accident), and while it doesn't damage the giant, it does convince him that he has entered a “nasty, unhealthy” area swarming with biting insects. The indignant giant takes his leave to healthier climes, as Garm brags to the village of his master's heroic deeds. Many miles away, the King of the Middle Kingdom comes to hear of Farmer Giles's besting of the giant, and in thanks, sends him an old, out of fashion, unwanted sword from his treasury. The story parodies the great dragon-slaying traditions. The knights sent by the King to pursue the dragon are useless fops, more intent on "precedence and etiquette" than on the huge dragon footprints littering the landscape. The only part of a 'dragon' they know is the annual celebratory dragon-tail cake. Giles by contrast clearly recognises the danger, and resents being sent with them to face it. But hapless farmers can be forced to become heroes, and Giles shrewdly makes the best of the situation. It's its hero that truly carries the story. Farmer Giles is neither a bold and fearless warrior such as Aragorn or Fëanor, nor a weak and meek little guy filled more with doubts than raw skill such as the hobbits, nor even an unsympathetic coward always trying to get rid of his responsibilities like Rincewind: instead, he's just a grumpy farmer that doesn't even seem to realize the how fantastic his quest is supposed to be, treating it all as nothing more than a chore to be only taken care of when he runs out of excuses to push it to another day. That sort of a thing is rare, and Tolkien if anyone knows how to draw out every bit of its potential.
The tale's Foreword states that the tale is "a translation" from "insular Latin" of events taking place "after the days of King Coel maybe, but before Arthur or the Seven Kingdoms of the English". [10] Blunderbuss philology edit A blunderbuss 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 from Wales, Chrysophylax Dives, to investigate the area. The terrified neighbours all expect the accidental hero Farmer Giles to deal with him. a b c d e f g Lakowski, Romuald I. (2015). " 'A Wilderness of Dragons': Tolkien's Treatment of Dragons in Roverandom and Farmer Giles of Ham". Mythlore. 34 (1). Article 8.
Wie auch immer: Man erlebt, durch die ganze Geschichte hindurch, Tolkiens Gespür für sehr feinsinnigen Humor. Obwohl es sich bei dieser Erzählung eindeutig um ein Märchen (oder etwas, das sehr dicht dran ist) handelt, haben nicht nur Kinder etwas davon.
Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.). HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0261102750. Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. London: Allen & Unwin, 1981. Carpenter presents a generous selection of all or parts of some 354 of Tolkien's letters. The letters of late 1938 and early 1939 mention his plans to write a sequel to Farmer Giles of Ham and perhaps some three or four other stories of the Little Kingdom. In a letter of 1947 Tolkien denies that Farmer Giles of Ham was written for children and emphasizes that it is "specially composed for reading aloud." This book is indispensable for revealing important observations made by the author on his own work. A hungry dragon, a near-sighted giant, foppish knights, a greedy king and stolen treasure. All confront Farmer Giles to give much thought to the Wide World outside his fields, the village, and the nearest market. In 2009, the 60th Anniversary Editon was published, limited only to 500 copies. It has the same content as the 50th Anniversary Editon.
Well,” said Giles,” if it is you notion to go dragon hunting jingling and dinging like Canterbury Bells it ain’t mine. It don’t seem sense to me to let a dragon to let a dragon know that you are coming along the road sooner than need be.” This was full of the wry humour I have grown to love from Tolkien. This often had me smirking and giggling and I enjoyed my time with this story immensely. It was also one full of bravery and heart, again like the best of Tolkien's stories also are, and proved a joy to read on many levels. Da dieser Ausgabe auch die ursprüngliche Fassung (also jene, die er niederschrieb nachdem er die Geschichte seinen Kindern erzählte) beiliegt, kann man hervorragend nachvollziehen, wie Tolkien arbeitete. Besonders sein eigentliches Liebkind, die Sprachspielerei, erlebt dabei nämlich eine unglaubliche Evolution.I loved this story. I had all the expectations when I started it because of Tolkien being the author, but it was not misplaced. He's the absolute G.O.A.T. Not only would kids love this, there are laugh out loud moments for adults as well. I'm paraphrasing slightly, but an example is the description of Farmer Giles's hefty wife who reportedly took shrewd care of their finances. "Nothing got past her. Unless it took a very long walk indeed." Of course we also get the dual pleasure of something light and enjoyable as with most of Tolkien’s earlier works (ie. Roverandom or even the full length The Hobbit), mixed with the lush imagination of the king of fantasy Himself. Hargrove, Gene (2013) [2007]. "Farmer Giles". In Drout, Michael D. C. (ed.). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 198–199. ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0. Shippey 2005, p. 111 "The capital of the Middle Kingdom, 'some twenty miles distant from Ham', sounds like Tamworth, the historical capital of the Mercian kings". Next day he found that the news had grown in the telling, and he had become an important local figure. By the middle of the next week the news had spread to all the villages within twenty miles. He had become the Hero of the Countryside. Very pleasant he found it. Next market day he got enough free drink to float a boat: that is to say, he nearly had his fill, and came home singing old heroic songs.
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