Fairy-tale Versions of Beowulf

In Tolkien On Fairy-Stories (2008), Verlyn Flieger and I noted that in Tolkien's research notes for his famous lecture/essay, Tolkien queried himself twice about whether on not Andrew Lang had included a retold Beowulf in any of his Fairy Books--the first time briefly, but in the second instance with a bit of commentary: 

A Fairy Story. But when retold (seldom) it is not retold as such. For what the poet did to it was for his own purposes--rel[ated] to the substance but not the manner of the story. It should be retold as a fairy-story. [Tolkien On Fairy-stories, p. 100]

Verlyn and I suggested that this note (probably dating from 1943) might have been the germ for Tolkien's fairy story version "Sellic Spell" (in existence by the summer of 1945), which was unpublished at the time our book came out. "Sellic Spell" has since been published in Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell (2014), edited by Christopher Tolkien. It appears there in final form (occupying 26 pages by itself), with additional material including an introduction and commentary on the drafts by Christopher, and a version by Tolkien in Old English. 

I checked the twelve Andrew Lang colored fairy books when researching Tolkien On Fairy-stories, but found no fairy tale version of Beowulf. Since then I have worked with others of Lang's various anthologies for children and, oddly (considering its title), in Lang's The Red Book of Animal Stories (1899), I found two chapters covering the Beowulf story. As usual, Lang was the compiler of stories written by other people, and the Beowulf sections, and other stories about "unscientific animals" (to use Lang's phrase) were told by Mr. H.S.C. Everard, or Harry Stirling Crawfurd Everard (1848-1909), who was best known as a writer of columns on golf, for newspapers, magazines, and specialist journals. 

Everard's "The Story of Beowulf, Grendel, and Grendel's Mother" and "The Story of Beowulf and the Fire Drake" were illustrated with plates by H.J. Ford--two for the first story, one for the second. (I  copy all three along with this posting.) Both stories are short, and you can read the first here, and the second here. Both of the Everard versions have some interesting Tolkienian aspects, in details that do not come from the original. Enjoy.

Lo! Beowulf and Other Topics

Just a quick acknowledgement of the long-awaited publication this week of Tolkien's translation of Beowulf, with such interesting extras as "Sellic Spell" and "The Lay of Beowulf". It's very good to see all of these available for scholarly study at last.

I'd also like to call attention to a new venue for the scholarly study of Tolkien, The Journal of Tolkien Research.  This is a peer-reviewed, online, open-access (FREE to all) scholarly journal. I'm serving as Book Reviews Editor, and am pleased to be working with Brad Eden (Editor) as well as other members of the Editorial Board, including Dimitra Fimi, John Holmes, John Houghton, Robin Reid, and Ed Risden.  And I look forward to working with other colleagues as essayists and book reviewers.  Please explore the site to get an idea of what we're planning and doing, and to watch it grow.

I'm also pleased to announce that Tolkien On Fairy-stories, a critical edition of Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-stories" and its associated manuscripts, edited by Verlyn Flieger and myself and originally published by HarperCollins in 2008, is coming out in an affordable trade paperback edition on August 14th.  Order via Amazon.com by clicking here, and via Amazon.co.uk by clicking here.