Arthurs of Our Own

Apparently, CS Lewis thought of his friend JRR Tolkien as the return of King Arthur. Philologist Elwin Ransom aka Mr. Fisher-King aka the Pendragon, the star of Lewis’s space trilogy (Ransom Trilogy for the smarty-panses) was based on the Middle-Earth man.

Was JRR really kidnapped by an evil physicist and a slick conman and taken to Mars? Probably not. But it is a fact that he acquired new tongues. In his thought, Tolkien seems to have pieced through the veil, bringing down some or other timeless power of heaven in his strange words.

He also brings back something dead and buried, ancient and forgotten—quite unwelcome to our modern sentiments but undeniably delightful to every human heart. It is the magic of earth. For of course Merlin, “the horrible old man” (as he might seem to us) returns out of the deep past to aid Ransom in his fated triumph.

Thus it may be that we taste in Tolkien’s writings the harmony of heavenly glory and magical earthiness. And what is this combination if not true humanity? Molded of earth yet heaven-born, the God-Man himself calls us onward and upward. So let’s bring the ruckus on our modern age with celestial truth and earthy wisdom in beautiful harmony. May star and soil arm us in our various Camelot quests in this technological age of wonders, horrors, and madness.