also attends this year (or, less probably, in 1915) W.A. Craigie’s lectures on Hrafnkel’s Saga on Thursdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 22 January, and probably Craigie’s continuation of his lectures on Old Icelandic Grammar on Tuesdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 20 January. He possibly attends as well lectures by Sir John Rhys on Welsh: The Mabinogion on Tuesdays and Fridays at 6.00 p.m. at Jesus College, beginning 23 January, and by *E.E. Wardale on the Literature of the Old English Period on Mondays at 11.00 a.m. in the Old Ashmolean, beginning 26 January. – Tolkien and Colin Cullis, President and Secretary of the Stapeldon Society for Hilary Term, examine the Society’s rules before they are reprinted. Cullis writes two pages of possible amendments, which they both sign. Tolkien uses the versos of these sheets to make a list of unusual English words, with a note to look them up in the *Oxford English Dictionary. – During this term, Tolkien is also a member of a committee to draw up a new constitution for the Exeter College Essay Club; he signs the new rules in January 1914. He is Secretary of the Club for Hilary Term, but no minutes survive until those for the meeting of 4 March. – Probably during this term, Tolkien plays a football match with the Exeter College Rugby XV versus the Boat Club. See note.
26 January 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. The new Secretary records that ‘the memory and imagination of the House was stirred by the cinematographically vivid minutes of the last meeting’, written by Tolkien as the previous Secretary (Exeter College archives).
30 January 1914 The Sub-Rector signs a note giving Tolkien and Colin Cullis leave ‘to have supper for nine on Sat. nights in the rooms of one or the other this term’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). Tolkien will later write on this note: ‘Germ of the Chequers’, i.e. the beginning of the Chequers Clubbe (*Societies and clubs). The only recorded meeting of this club is on 18 June 1914, but it may be supposed that Tolkien and Cullis host at least some dinners during Hilary Term. Many of the members who will sign Tolkien’s menu on 18 June were also members of the Apolausticks, which suggests that the Chequers Clubbe was a successor to that group.
Early February 1914 Christopher Wiseman and T.K. Barnsley form a delegation from Cambridge to the Oxford Wesley Society; Rob Gilson accompanies them. They have ‘a splendid weekend…. I saw lots of [his Birmingham friend Frederick] Scopes and Tolkien and G.B. Smith, all of whom seem very contented with life’ (Gilson, letter to Marianne Cary Gilson, 17 February 1914, quoted in John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War (2003), p. 32).
2 February 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society, though he is suffering from ‘gastric influenza’ contracted the previous evening.
9 February 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. A committee is elected, consisting of the President of the Junior Common Room, the President of the Stapeldon Society (Tolkien), and R.H. Gordon, to consider the question of a College Dinner in Trinity Term as part of celebrations marking the sexcentenary of the founding of Exeter College.
16 February 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. His eagle eye or keen sense of smell detecting the presence of a glass of intoxicating liquor, he orders its immediate removal. The members later debate the motion: ‘Flirting is a reprehensible past-time’. The votes at the end being equal, Tolkien as President casts the deciding vote in favour of the motion.
23 February 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. Someone having upset a bath in the room above, Tolkien is reported to have remarked: ‘Zeus thunders on the right’ (Exeter College archives).
2 March 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. In a debate he speaks in favour of the motion: ‘The cheap cinema is an engine of social corruption’. The motion fails, 9 votes to 10.
4 March 1914 At a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club in the rooms of E.W. Marshall, Tolkien is elected President of the Club for Trinity Term. He reads a paper on Francis Thompson which begins with biographical details, then justifies Tolkien’s opinion that Thompson should be ranked among the very greatest of poets. Supporting his views with many quotations, he praises Thompson’s metrical power, the greatness of his language, and the immensity of his imagery and its underlying faith.
9 March 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Stapeldon Society. He replies as departing President to a vote of thanks to officers at the end of their term of office. He remains however on the Sexcentenary Dinner committee.
Spring 1914 Exeter College awards Tolkien the Skeat Prize for English. He uses the £5 to buy The Life and Death of Jason and The House of the Wolfings, both by William Morris, as well as the Morris translation of the Völsunga Saga and A Welsh Grammar by Sir John Morris-Jones. He will later remark: ‘My college, I know, and the shade of Walter Skeat, I surmise, was shocked when the only prize I ever won (there was only one other competitor) … was spent on Welsh’ (*English and Welsh, in The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, p. 192). See note.
14 March 1914 Hilary Full Term ends.
15 March 1914 Tolkien adds to The Book of Ishness a watercolour of the sea, or possibly of the Great Wave which sometimes haunts his dreams, ‘towering up, and coming in ineluctably over the trees and green fields’ (letter to W.H. Auden, 7 June 1955, Letters, p. 213).
21 April 1914 Tolkien adds to The Book of Ishness a simple, diagrammatic drawing entitled Everywhere, and a strange design of bells and dancing lampposts entitled Tarantella (?).
26 April 1914 Trinity Full Term begins.
Trinity Term 1914 Tolkien very likely attends the conclusion of A.S. Napier’s lectures on English Historical Grammar, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 30 April. He probably attends Kenneth Sisam’s classes on Beowulf and Pearl, and perhaps one or more of Sisam’s four recurring classes on the Anglo-Saxon Reader, on Havelok, and on Elementary Historical Grammar. He probably also attends (more likely now than in Trinity Term 1915, immediately before final examinations) W.A. Craigie’s lectures on Outlines of Scandinavian Philology on Tuesdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 28 April, and on the Hallfreðar Saga on Thursdays at 5.00 p.m. in the Taylor Institution, beginning 30 April; and perhaps D. Nichol Smith’s lectures on English Literature from Caxton to Milton on Wednesdays and Fridays at 11.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 29 April. He possibly attends lectures by Sir John Rhys on Welsh: The Mabinogion (White Book Text) on Tuesdays and Fridays at 5.00 p.m. at Jesus College, beginning 1 May.
4 May 1914 The Stapeldon Society meets.
16 May 1914 Tolkien rewrites his poem Wood-sunshine (first composed in July 1910). – G.K. Chesterton gives a lecture, Romance, at 5.30 p.m. in the Oxford Examination Schools.
18 May 1914 Tolkien rewrites his poem The Dale Lands (first composed in May 1910), now with the slightly emended title The Dale-lands. – At a meeting of the Stapeldon Society Tolkien is given the task of writing to various people to ask if they would propose toasts at the Sexcentenary Dinner. In a debate following Society business he proposes the motion: ‘That Oxford was made for Eights Week and not Eights Week for Oxford’. The motion carries, 6 to 3.
20 May 1914 Tolkien chairs a meeting of the Exeter College Essay Club in Colin Cullis’s rooms. J.F. Huntington reads a paper on George Borrow. In the discussion afterwards, Tolkien confesses to having no great admiration for Borrow.
26 May 1914 Tolkien attends a performance by the Exeter College Musical Society. The programme includes songs by members of the Society and guests Miss Dora Arnell and Mr Stewart Gardner, as well as flute and pianoforte solos.
June 1914 Tolkien and other Exeter College students pose for group photographs. See note.
1 June 1914