Sophocles and asks Tolkien to make a copy for him. He returns Tolkien’s own poems with comments on a separate sheet, possibly those on the back of an unused telegram form preserved among the Tolkien Papers; in these he mentions The Pool of the Dead Year, Tinfang Warble, The Forest Walker, and A Dream of Coming Home, and says that Tolkien ought to start ‘the epic’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).
21 January 1917 Mrs Smith writes to Tolkien at Great Haywood, forwarded to Abbotsford, Wake Green Road, Moseley (the home of his Aunt Mabel and Uncle Tom Mitton). She has heard from R.W. Reynolds and is grateful to him and to Tolkien for the trouble they are taking over her son’s poetry.
23 January 1917 Tolkien is examined by a Medical Board at the 1st Southern General Hospital. Although his condition has improved, he is still pale and weak, his appetite is poor, he has experienced two slight returns of fever, and he still has occasional pains in his knees and elbows. The Board declares him unfit for general service for two months, and unfit for home and light duty for one month. His leave is extended to 22 February.
12 February 1917 Tolkien writes to the War Office from Great Haywood to report that at the expiration of his leave on 22 February his address will be Great Haywood, Staffordshire. – Edith Tolkien either begins to make a fair copy of Tolkien’s first version of The Cottage of Lost Play or finishes doing so: she writes her initials and today’s date on the cover of the school exercise book used for the purpose.
27 February 1917 Tolkien is examined by a Medical Board at the Military Hospital, Lichfield. He is still debilitated and has pains in his legs and occasional fever. The Board declares him unfit for general or home service for two months or even light duty for one month, and recommends one month’s treatment in an officers’ convalescent hospital. His address on the completed form is changed from Great Haywood to Abbotsford, Moseley, Birmingham (the Mittons). He is sent to Furness Auxiliary Hospital in Harrogate, Yorkshire, probably at once. See note.
Beginning of March 1917 Having heard that G.B. Smith’s brother Roger, also serving in the Army, died in Mesopotamia on 25 January, Tolkien writes from Harrogate to Smith’s mother.
4 and 9 March 1917 Wiseman replies to a letter from Tolkien sent a month earlier. He is pleased to have set Tolkien off on his great work: ‘The reason why I want you to write the epic is because I want you to connect all these [poems and tales] up properly, & make their meaning & context tolerably clear’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). With his letter Tolkien had sent some poems, on which Wiseman now comments. He asks for news of G.B. Smith’s poems and whether Tolkien is doing anything to get his own work published. He has received another letter from Tolkien and is glad that Edith is now with him at Harrogate. Wiseman addresses the letter to Tolkien at 95 Valley Drive, Harrogate, Yorkshire, presumably where Edith and Jennie Grove are staying.
6 March 1917 G.B. Smith’s mother replies to Tolkien at Furness Auxiliary Hospital to thank him for his sympathy.
28 March 1917 Tolkien is examined by a Medical Board at Furness Auxiliary Hospital. He is improving but still has pains in his knees and elbows. The Board declares him unfit for general and home service for one month, but fit for one month’s light duty at home, and recommends a further three weeks of sick leave, until 18 April. His address on the completed form is given as 95 Valley Road, Harrogate.
6 April 1917 The United States declares war on Germany.
14 April 1917 Wiseman, on leave in London, informs Tolkien by telegram that he will visit him on 18 April.
15 April 1917 (postmark) Wiseman writes to Tolkien at 95 Valley Drive, Harrogate, confirming what he has already telegraphed, that he is on leave and wants to visit Tolkien and Edith in the morning of 18 April. According to his present orders, he needs to catch a train from Leeds in the afternoon, but if his leave is extended he might not come until 19 April. On receiving this, Tolkien probably telegraphs that he has to report for duty on the latter date.
17–?18 April 1917 In the circumstances, Wiseman arrives in Harrogate on 17 April, at 6.51 p.m. according to a telegram he sends that afternoon. Tolkien lends him manuscripts of Smith’s poems and a typewritten copy.
19 April 1917 At the expiration of his leave Tolkien joins the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers at Thirtle Bridge Camp on the Holderness peninsula, near Withernsea, part of the Humber Garrison. The battalion has two duties: to train new recruits for the front, and to guard against any assault from the sea. The camp houses some 1,600 soldiers. See note.
1 May 1917 Tolkien is examined by a Medical Board at Humber Garrison headquarters in Hull. ‘He is improving but requires hardening’ (Public Record Office). The Board declares him fit for home service but unfit for general service. His address is recorded as HQ3, Thirtle Bridge.
May 1917 Tolkien spends part of his time at the Musketry Camp near Hornsea, established by the Army to refresh regimental officers and non-commissioned officers in the use of the rifle in battle.
5 May 1917 By this date, Edith and Jennie are resident in Hornsea, at 1 Bank Terrace.
19 May 1917 Wiseman writes to Tolkien, returning the manuscripts of Smith’s poems. He will keep the typed copy until he can send Tolkien his suggestions. He thinks that they should not aim at publishing ‘Opera Omnia, but a good book of verse’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).
1 June 1917 Tolkien is examined by a Medical Board at Humber Garrison headquarters in Hull. The Board declares him fit for general service, and orders him to remain with his unit at Thirtle Bridge until further notice.
?Early June 1917 For a brief time early in Tolkien’s posting to the Humber Garrison he is put in charge of an outpost and given quarters which allow Edith to live with him for a while. See note. – Tolkien will annotate a later version of his poem Sea-Song of an Elder Day (after 31 August–2 September 1917, see below): ‘Present shape due to rewriting and adding introd[uction] & ending in a lonely house near Roos, Holderness (Thirtle Bridge Camp) Spring 1917’ (quoted in *The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986), p. 215). The ‘lonely house’ is probably to be identified with the officer’s quarters provided to Tolkien as commander of the outpost. The extant manuscript of the poem as written out in March 1915 (as Sea-Chant of an Elder Day) includes a later addition, a short prose introduction which connects the poem to the story of the fall of Gondolin (see entry for End of 1916–early 1917): it becomes ‘the song that Tuor told to Eärendel his son what time the Exiles of Gondolin dwelt awhile in Dor Tathrin the Land of Willows after the burning of their city’ (quoted in The Shaping of Middle-earth, p. 214). – Tolkien also continues to work on his Gnomish lexicon, rewriting in ink over an earlier pencil layer. An inscription indicates that this stage at least is written at ‘Tol Withernon’, almost certainly a Gnomish reference to ‘Withernsea’.
Tolkien and Edith visit a wood near Roos. There she dances for him, a seminal event in the development of his mythology. As he will describe it in 1964 in a letter to Christopher Bretherton: ‘the original version of the “Tale of Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren” … was founded on a small wood with a great undergrowth of ‘hemlock’ (no doubt many other related plants were also there) near Roos in Holderness, where I was for a while on the Humber Garrison’ (Letters, p. 345); and in a letter to his son Christopher in 1972: I never called Edith Lúthien – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire … . In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing and dance’ (Letters, p. 420). See note.
Summer 1917 Hilary Tolkien receives minor shrapnel wounds while helping to carry supplies over the Passchendaele Ridge near Ypres.
?Late June–early July 1917 Christopher Wiseman writes to