WEBVTT

1
00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:14.359
Alone. Welcome to Mythic Mind.
We pursue wisdom of the past between primary

2
00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:18.079
secondary worlds. I'm your host,
Andrew Snyder, and as always I am

3
00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:31.160
truly grateful for your company. All
Right, So it took a little bit

4
00:00:31.199 --> 00:00:34.520
longer than I had originally planned,
but today we're wrapping up our series on

5
00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:38.560
Tolkien's Tales from the Perilous Realm as
I discussed Smith of Wutten Major with today's

6
00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:42.320
guests Aaron Irber. But first I
want to thank all of my patrons and

7
00:00:42.359 --> 00:00:45.840
my super patrons and hire by name, and so many thanks to Mark,

8
00:00:45.920 --> 00:00:50.039
Paul, Aaron, Aaron, Andrew
Brandon, Emmy Harrison, Ian Jamie,

9
00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:54.439
Jeremiah, Joscelyn, Joshua, Matthew, and William. Your support helps me

10
00:00:54.520 --> 00:00:58.679
to keep this going and to expand
into new directions. And speaking of new

11
00:00:58.679 --> 00:01:00.640
directions, I recently mentioned that I'm
going to be leading a couple of public

12
00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:04.239
studies this summer. The first study, which we'll begin in mid May,

13
00:01:04.599 --> 00:01:07.680
is on the fiction and philosophy of
C. S. Lewis, as we

14
00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:14.040
read and discuss his Ransom or Space
trilogy Screwtape Letters till we have phases the

15
00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:19.040
Great Divorce and Narnia. Each week
will include videos on the reading with philosophical

16
00:01:19.239 --> 00:01:23.719
and theological analysis, connections to other
course texts, connections to his related nonfiction

17
00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:27.959
books and essays, additional recommended reading, and more. And while I intend

18
00:01:27.959 --> 00:01:30.640
for there to be a great deal
of substance here, you do not have

19
00:01:30.719 --> 00:01:36.640
to have any prior experience in philosophy, theology, or Lewis. As with

20
00:01:36.760 --> 00:01:40.519
Lewis himself, I tend to take
some heavy material and present it in a

21
00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:44.799
way that is accessible to nearly everyone. In addition to these videos, we're

22
00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:48.840
going to have some live discussions that
will be recorded and made available, and

23
00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:53.120
we're going to have ongoing conversations into
an exclusive discord chat. And I'm also

24
00:01:53.159 --> 00:01:57.040
going to provide prompts for reflection and
production related to the reading. Your level

25
00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:00.359
of engagement is entirely up to you, as I know that everyone's going to

26
00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:05.680
have different interests and schedule allotments.
But I want for this to be as

27
00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:08.520
immersive as you want it to be. And most of all, I'm really

28
00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:15.439
looking forward to the community that is
already building around these incredibly potentially life changing

29
00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:19.080
stories. If you are interested in
doing this, I encourage you to go

30
00:02:19.159 --> 00:02:22.520
ahead and sign up now. If
you sign up for the Lewis Course in

31
00:02:22.599 --> 00:02:25.199
November, you will have free access
to the other course, which is going

32
00:02:25.240 --> 00:02:30.360
to be Life, Death and Meaning
with Beowulf and Boethius. If you're interested

33
00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:32.400
in joining this community, I encourage
you to go ahead and sign up now.

34
00:02:32.759 --> 00:02:36.360
If you sign up for the Lewis
Course in November, you'll have free

35
00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:39.680
access to the other course, Life, Death and Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius

36
00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:44.360
when it becomes available. Also,
if you sign up between now and the

37
00:02:44.439 --> 00:02:47.080
end of twenty twenty three, you
can use the code first in the wardrobe

38
00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:51.719
for twenty five percent off. I'll
put the link to the course and that

39
00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:54.719
promo code in the show notes.
And now let's get to the main feature

40
00:02:54.719 --> 00:02:59.639
of today's show, as I discuss
Smith and Wooten Major with Aaron Irber.

41
00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:02.520
I randomly came across Aaron on Twitter
one day and how to check out his

42
00:03:02.599 --> 00:03:07.199
podcast when I saw the title I
Might Believe in Fairies. Aaron discusses topics

43
00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:12.240
of faith and culture, and especially
literary culture, folklore and the sort,

44
00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:15.759
with a range of interesting guests.
It's generally in my rotation and it should

45
00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:19.280
be in yours. As well,
and so be sure to look up I

46
00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:23.080
might believe in fairies. So now
we're going to move into our conversation on

47
00:03:23.159 --> 00:03:25.199
Smith of Wouten Major, although I
do want to say something kind of about

48
00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:29.319
the outset, and I probably should
have led with this at the beginning of

49
00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:32.680
this whole series, is that when
we're discussing stories, and probably especially when

50
00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:38.840
we're discussing Tolkien stories, and I
talk about what things mean, I don't

51
00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:43.319
mean to do so as like a
straight one to one relationship, as in

52
00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:46.199
a strict allegory. Really, what
I mean is that when we read good

53
00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:53.280
stories, when we read Tolkien stories, we see echoes of primary world realities

54
00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:57.599
playing out in the secondary worlds that
he created. And so that's just worth

55
00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:00.719
keeping in mind that I'm not trying
to tell you here's what it means,

56
00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:04.240
but I'm trying to tell you here's
something of what I think it means.

57
00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:09.000
And I hope that that makes sense. Well anyways, I'll sot off rambling

58
00:04:09.159 --> 00:04:12.560
and jump right to it. Oh
and one more thing, I had to

59
00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:15.399
record this when I was outside of
my studio, so the audio quality isn't

60
00:04:15.519 --> 00:04:18.480
quite what I would like, and
so I do apologize about that. Anyways,

61
00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:32.879
here we go, Aeron Urbero.
Welcome to the mythic of my podcast.

62
00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:39.040
Hey, thanks for having me.
Absolutely Now, pretty soon after when

63
00:04:39.079 --> 00:04:44.199
I first started really engaging with Tolkien
beyond Wesendarium, and I got to this

64
00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:46.759
story, which is Smith and Wuton
Major, which is about the idea of

65
00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:51.480
fairy that's more or less when I
first doubled across your podcast I Might Believe

66
00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:56.839
in Fairies. Naturally, I kind
of made a connection there, But why

67
00:04:56.879 --> 00:04:59.480
don't you go ahead and tell us
a little bit about yourself kind of what

68
00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:03.319
you're into and what you do.
Yeah, So, as you mentioned,

69
00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:08.959
I have a podcast that it's called
I Might Believe in Fairies and I discuss

70
00:05:09.879 --> 00:05:14.319
it started kind of as like,
I was really frustrated with the lack of

71
00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:18.600
content, like interesting content. And
I'm a Roman Catholic, so the lack

72
00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:23.560
of interesting content being produced by Catholic
people. Most of it is political,

73
00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:27.480
most of it is apologetic and scope, which means, you know, explaining

74
00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:31.720
the faith, and that's fine,
but I was just kind of fed up

75
00:05:31.720 --> 00:05:35.319
with all that stuff. So I
wanted to do something else. So the

76
00:05:35.319 --> 00:05:40.600
main kind of the goal of the
show is to discuss not just like Catholic

77
00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:45.399
authors, but Christian authors that have
especially ones that have like an apostolic sort

78
00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:49.399
of and sacramental sort of view of
the cosmos and then just promote their work.

79
00:05:49.399 --> 00:05:51.360
You know. I wanted to do
that, and then it turned into

80
00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:55.800
like, well, I talk about
folklore and I talk about some weird stuff

81
00:05:55.839 --> 00:06:00.000
in scripture, and yeah, just
it's it's been a lot of fun.

82
00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:05.079
So that's what I do in my
spare time. I'm an entomologist by training.

83
00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:10.360
I got a graduate degree at the
University of Minnesota. Entomology was just

84
00:06:10.360 --> 00:06:13.480
a sort of insects, so that's
kind of kind of related to what I

85
00:06:13.519 --> 00:06:17.360
do for my day job kind of. So yeah, that's that's pretty much

86
00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:24.040
me. Check out my show,
I guess. Yeah, I would definitely

87
00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:28.120
recommend that. Over the past a
couple of years or so, I would

88
00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:30.639
say it is when I first started
to really become enchanted, started to really

89
00:06:30.680 --> 00:06:35.399
deal with the idea of fairy It's
when I first really discovered Tolkien and left

90
00:06:35.399 --> 00:06:41.480
modernity behind, so to speak.
And it's a you know, when I

91
00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:45.800
saw the title of your podcast something
on Twitter, I just naturally drew me

92
00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:47.519
in and so I mean, let
me ask you this. I mean,

93
00:06:47.639 --> 00:06:53.000
I think you said you're not really
focused on the apologetics and that side of

94
00:06:53.040 --> 00:06:58.720
thing, although it might be potentially
tygentally related. Yeah, what what is

95
00:06:58.759 --> 00:07:04.120
your interest in very fantasy folklore that
sort of thing. Well, I my

96
00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:13.920
interest in it. It's really fun
Primarily, Like you know, I guess

97
00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:15.439
I don't really know how I really
got started into it. I kind of

98
00:07:15.439 --> 00:07:19.680
grew up on comic books, so
it's they're kind of related to fairy stories

99
00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:24.480
and fantasy kind of, you know, they're they're a bit different, like

100
00:07:24.519 --> 00:07:29.759
they're kind of different genres, but
they're they're tangentially related. But I like,

101
00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:38.360
I'm interested in fantasy because I think
it expresses how we actually live in

102
00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:41.839
the world, you know, and
how we actually interact with the world.

103
00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:46.480
And what I mean by that is, you know, as as a Christian,

104
00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:53.000
you know, we believe in some
things that give secular people, you

105
00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:57.000
know, give my heart attack,
you know, or make them make them

106
00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:00.839
think twice about taking it seriously,
like angels and Dan's and for me,

107
00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:07.519
Catholic saints, and and with fairy
stories. Actually, I just attended a

108
00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:13.399
Christian science fiction fantasy convention called Doxicon, and one of the keynote speakers was

109
00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:18.240
Tim Powers, and he was a
really amazing author. Uh. He said

110
00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:26.199
that while the actual character of Sauron
is make believe something like Sauron exists,

111
00:08:26.839 --> 00:08:33.159
you know, and that's what fairy
stories, that's what fantasy, good fantasy

112
00:08:33.159 --> 00:08:37.679
can do, is to remind us
that these things actually exist and the world

113
00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:43.919
is stranger than we we really think. He also gave the example of with

114
00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:48.200
materialists, with secular modern secular people, you know, we have kind of

115
00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:50.879
these like sense, these like sense
images in our minds. And he gave

116
00:08:50.919 --> 00:08:58.559
an example of like the chickens being
reared in an enclosed space no sunlight entered

117
00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:01.120
in for generations, you know,
and big barn with no windows, no

118
00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:05.679
exposure to the outside world, and
after like three or four generations, kind

119
00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:09.639
of you know, without the sun, without any sort of external you know,

120
00:09:09.799 --> 00:09:13.639
factors like predators and things like that, they would they wheeld a cardboard

121
00:09:13.639 --> 00:09:18.399
cutout of a hawk across and so
the shadow would pass over the chicks and

122
00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:20.799
they all freaked out, you know, they all the chicks freaked out and

123
00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:28.279
ran for cover. And and so
even without like the the real experience,

124
00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:33.639
real knowledge and experience with with a
hawk with like you know, maybe they

125
00:09:33.720 --> 00:09:35.559
learned that from their their chick parents, their chicken parents, you know.

126
00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:41.120
Well, no, it's in it
this innate thing in us where we were

127
00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:45.399
we have this like sense of the
other right. And so that's what fairy

128
00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:48.799
tales can kind of do is remind
us of that. People still get even

129
00:09:48.799 --> 00:09:52.399
if you're not a believer, you're
a materialist, you're an atheist, you

130
00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:54.240
still get creeped up. I think, you know, when you have no

131
00:09:54.360 --> 00:10:00.279
right to be you know, ghosts
and wear wolves and whatnot. So yeah,

132
00:10:00.279 --> 00:10:01.399
I think fantasy is really good for
that. And besides that it is

133
00:10:01.440 --> 00:10:05.559
really fun. So that's how it
should be. Yeah, fair enough.

134
00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:11.559
I mean even Carl Jung said something
I give the quotic not quite right,

135
00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:16.440
but basically said, even the most
hard boiled rationalists is not free from terrors

136
00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:22.320
and nightmares. Like whether you believe
as we do, that, I mean,

137
00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:28.320
there are actual others, other realities
that play here than the material or

138
00:10:28.360 --> 00:10:31.440
even that it's a projection of the
human consciousness. Like there's something that we

139
00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:37.279
aren't able to tangibly or even necessarily
rationally deal with, that we need to

140
00:10:37.279 --> 00:10:41.960
deal with in some way, shape
or form. You know, my academic

141
00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:48.639
background is in turke Guard. My
doctoral dissertation was on Careguard's sense of anxiety,

142
00:10:48.759 --> 00:10:52.639
despair, fulfillment, that sort of
thing. And as I kind of

143
00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:58.679
at the same time as wrapping that
up really sorted dive into Tolkien and fairy

144
00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:05.519
fantasy more broadly, I really saw
a pretty profound overlap between the concerns of

145
00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:11.919
the existentialists, especially the Christian existentialists, and then you have fairy as the

146
00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:16.279
perilous realm where we either find or
lose ourselves, right, right, And

147
00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:20.519
so I've passed this of all my
guests as I go through the series on

148
00:11:20.679 --> 00:11:24.600
Telton perils realm, what exactly you
kind of already address this, but what

149
00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:31.720
is the perilous realm? What is
landa fairy? Oh boy? And I

150
00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:37.080
just kind of breeze through Tolkien's on
fairy stories, and even Tolkien like can't

151
00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:43.080
really give a definition. He actually
kind of purposely doesn't give a definition,

152
00:11:43.159 --> 00:11:48.159
and he talks about what fairy is
not, well, it's it's from what

153
00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:54.279
I understand, it's fairy is like
it's it's a land, it's a but

154
00:11:54.320 --> 00:12:01.120
it's also like a state of being. And in a book I recently read.

155
00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:05.039
It's on the shelf over there.
I'll just grab it real quick.

156
00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:09.200
Remember the author, he's just on
my show. What his name is,

157
00:12:09.320 --> 00:12:13.039
Junius Johnson. So he wrote a
book called On Teaching Fairy Stories. I

158
00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:18.480
really recommend it, especially if you
are homeschooling and stuff. It's how to

159
00:12:18.559 --> 00:12:26.799
how to apply on fairy stories to
an educational teaching teaching students basically, and

160
00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:31.360
he talks about by being a state
of being as well. He kind of

161
00:12:31.399 --> 00:12:37.320
expands on what Tolkien was saying.
It's like there's a something it's kind of

162
00:12:37.360 --> 00:12:41.399
like sacred almost. It's like this, you're kind of set apart to be.

163
00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:46.840
To be sacred is to set something
apart and for special use you related

164
00:12:46.879 --> 00:12:50.960
to worship. But bey is kind
of like that, where but it's instead

165
00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.559
of a sacred use, it's kind
of like you're doomed, you know,

166
00:12:56.080 --> 00:12:58.399
and there's this kind of doom hanging
over you, and you are no longer

167
00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:03.919
are tethered to the rhythms of the
natural world, or I guess I should

168
00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:09.000
say the primary world, because fairies, accorded to Tolkien, are not supernatural.

169
00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:13.440
They are more natural. We we're
supernatural and they're hypernatural or something.

170
00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:20.960
Like that natural we are, and
so it's basically the state of being.

171
00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:26.759
And it's a land too that exists
kind of parallel to ours in a way,

172
00:13:26.919 --> 00:13:30.919
you know, and you can enter
into it, but the the boundaries

173
00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:33.559
are dubious, you know, you
don't know where the entrances are, and

174
00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:37.240
you might find yourself there, you
know. But I think it has more

175
00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:41.759
to do with the state of being, like kind of untethered from from the

176
00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:48.159
primary world in a way. It's
not I don't know if it's bad or

177
00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:52.320
good, you know it's but it
is dangerous, right right, Hence the

178
00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:58.320
parallels realm. Yeah. I like
Tolkien's take on that that it's not even

179
00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:03.039
so much that the elements of spirit
are themselves the transcendent, you know,

180
00:14:03.080 --> 00:14:09.120
they are the hypernatural that calls forth
or highlights the transcendent human spirit. And

181
00:14:09.399 --> 00:14:11.639
along several lines what you slaid out, he makes the point that fairy is

182
00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:16.360
neither heaven nor hell. It's something
like the road in between, where you

183
00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:20.679
find your bearings and end up one
place with the other. And so it's

184
00:14:20.759 --> 00:14:26.960
something like where you most fundamentally come
to terms with yourself and either are found

185
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:31.480
or lost. Yeah, exactly,
yep, And that's something that the Genius

186
00:14:31.559 --> 00:14:35.440
Jacks attacks about in his book too, is it's I don't want to say

187
00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:39.919
self discovery. It's not like a
journey of self discovery, but it's it's

188
00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:43.799
something like that where you enter into
fairy and you don't come out until you

189
00:14:43.840 --> 00:14:48.399
learn what you're supposed to learn,
you know, and and then by the

190
00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:52.879
end, if you survive, you're
usually you've learned something at least, you

191
00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:54.440
know. It might have not all
your pieces, you know, with you

192
00:14:54.480 --> 00:15:01.200
at the end, but you'll have
learned something and you'll be So it's something

193
00:15:01.240 --> 00:15:03.519
like that, you know. Yeah, and whatever, whatever it is that

194
00:15:03.559 --> 00:15:07.759
you learn and take with you,
that's the only treasure of fairry you're allowed

195
00:15:07.799 --> 00:15:11.639
to bring back into the primary world. Right, it's whatever you've internalize,

196
00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:15.720
so to speak. Right, unless
you're a smith, and then you get

197
00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:20.159
a flower. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. So yeah, there's

198
00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:24.279
a lot of fol floor where you
know, you go into the fairy burrow

199
00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:28.120
or barrow, you know, or
whatever, and they have all this food

200
00:15:28.399 --> 00:15:31.720
and gold and stuff. While you're
there. It's sumptuous and delicious, but

201
00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:35.360
you try to bring it back into
the primary world, it turns into you

202
00:15:35.399 --> 00:15:39.960
know, dung dead leaves. Basically
it's death. You know, you can't

203
00:15:41.080 --> 00:15:43.919
use it. It doesn't it doesn't
work, so you can't. Yeah,

204
00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:46.240
the only thing you can really bring
out is what you learned from the experience,

205
00:15:46.799 --> 00:15:52.159
and in that something of fairy does
enter into the primary world in you,

206
00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:56.759
right, And that gets the Tolkien's
idea of escape and recovery right.

207
00:15:58.039 --> 00:16:03.200
You go into fairy to step away
from the primary world in a way that

208
00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:07.480
you can return to it better very
quick to deal with that, right and

209
00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:11.600
you, Yeah, that's in his
unfairy stories. I always there's actually four

210
00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:17.039
things that the fairy stories do,
and I don't understand completely the first one

211
00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:21.240
and the fantasy, you know,
the idea do you have a resting strangeness

212
00:16:22.279 --> 00:16:26.000
where you're kind of almost dazzled by
the the difference the other you know,

213
00:16:27.200 --> 00:16:32.240
And then there's your recovery escaping consolation
and recovery is like regaining a clear view

214
00:16:32.279 --> 00:16:37.080
of things and looking at reality in
a more cleaning the windows I think Tolkien

215
00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:41.200
described it. And you you,
fairy helps you to regain a clear view

216
00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:45.679
of reality where instead of look it
gets rid of the familiarity and you start

217
00:16:45.720 --> 00:16:51.559
looking at trees as enchanted trees,
you know, not just boring old trees

218
00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:56.159
and horses as enchanted horses and whatnot. So yeah, yeah, And Lewis

219
00:16:56.200 --> 00:17:03.360
makes a similar point when when Kyle
enters in a chanted forest, that doesn't

220
00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:06.400
make him lose the original force.
It just makes all for us a little

221
00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:10.319
more enchanted. Exactly. Yep,
yep. So now moving on to the

222
00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:12.839
main topic, Smith the Wuten Major. To my understand, this is the

223
00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:18.240
last story that he wrote, at
least that was published. What is Smith

224
00:17:18.359 --> 00:17:19.720
Woten Major? Like, how do
you class this? What do you think

225
00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:26.079
is happening? It puts on a
metal level. Yeah, So, as

226
00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:29.359
you mentioned, so, Smith of
Wooten Major is the last thing Tolkien wrote

227
00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:33.759
as far as fiction goes, and
he wrote it when he was older.

228
00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:38.799
He was fifty seven when he wrote
it, which is the same year that

229
00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:47.079
he completed The Lord of the Ranks. So Vernon Fleeger and I think it

230
00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:49.480
was there's a two thousand and five
extended edition. I was trying to find

231
00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:52.680
that Tolkien wrote it. He was
a unpublished essay written by Tolkien about this,

232
00:17:52.759 --> 00:17:55.759
which I really want to read,
but I couldn't find it. So

233
00:17:55.880 --> 00:17:57.720
it's in the extended edition, but
the two thousand and five versions like three

234
00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:03.960
hundred dollars, so I can't swing
that. But Vernond s Flieger, Tolkien

235
00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:11.599
scholar. Her essay about it is
on the Tolkien Estate website. So it's

236
00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:15.799
basically it's Tolkien's what he's doing,
as far as I understand it is,

237
00:18:15.839 --> 00:18:18.599
he's taking the ideas that he wrote
about uh and un fairy stories. And

238
00:18:18.599 --> 00:18:22.319
the unfairy stories was actually a lecture
that he gave at the Andrew Lang a

239
00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:26.079
society. I think that it was
Andrew Lang. I think it was called

240
00:18:26.119 --> 00:18:30.640
the Angeline Society, but ange Lang
was a he he and his wife collected

241
00:18:30.680 --> 00:18:34.960
folk tales and fairy tales that coumdpile
them into the volumes the fairy book series

242
00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:38.839
of the Blue Pink you know,
red fairy books. And so they asked

243
00:18:38.839 --> 00:18:42.680
Tolkien to talk about what fairy stories
you know are, and he came and

244
00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:49.880
gave a lecture at the University of
Saint Andrews, Scotland, and basically within

245
00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:53.519
on fairy stories, he lays out, he tries to lay out what fairy

246
00:18:53.799 --> 00:19:00.000
land is, what you know,
what the fay are kind of indirect,

247
00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:03.400
you know, he says, he
can't really define it directly, it's kind

248
00:19:03.400 --> 00:19:07.079
of impossible, but he can he
can kind of talk about it indirectly.

249
00:19:07.480 --> 00:19:11.960
And so this Smith story, Smith
and Whoten Major is his attempt to put

250
00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:18.680
those ideas into practice in his true, a true fairy tale. And because

251
00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:23.039
I don't think he considered one of
the rings to be a true fairy tale.

252
00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:26.480
It's more like myth and myth and
fairy stories are related, but they're

253
00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:33.119
not the same thing. And so
yeah, that's that's what Smith is supposed

254
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:36.319
to be. You know, he's
he's taking ideas un fairy stories and he's

255
00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:40.319
giving them a body and putting them
in a story. And it also is

256
00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:44.720
Toldkien described it as an old man's
story, so he's older when he writes

257
00:19:44.759 --> 00:19:49.680
it. His big accomplishment has already
done. And as it says in the

258
00:19:49.759 --> 00:19:55.960
story, which we'll get to,
there's a there's a there's a title called

259
00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:59.920
the Great Cook that in the town
where they in every twenty four years in

260
00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.240
make a great cake. It's called
the Great Cake for the feast of the

261
00:20:03.240 --> 00:20:06.200
good Children, and twenty four children
are invited and they're supposed to be all

262
00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:10.720
the best children. They are the
most virtuous and stuff, but only you

263
00:20:10.759 --> 00:20:14.240
know, the great cooks, since
it's every twenty four years. Great cooks

264
00:20:14.279 --> 00:20:17.000
only really get to make a cake
once, you know, are a great

265
00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:21.400
cake once in their career. And
I think Tolkien felt that the Lord of

266
00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:23.480
the Rings and the whole Legendarium was
his great cake, you know, and

267
00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:30.400
that he was done. And this
is kind of his sort of bereavement but

268
00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:33.799
peaceful sort of acknowledgment that he had
he needs to move on and pass the

269
00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:40.079
torch. So that's that's I think
what the story if I could summarize it

270
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:42.440
like it is, but it's more. It is more than that. It's

271
00:20:42.440 --> 00:20:49.759
more than just Tolkien being sad and
writing a sad story about losing Fairyland more

272
00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:55.519
than stand on its own, you
know. But yeah, yeah, yeah,

273
00:20:55.519 --> 00:20:56.799
And I think it's good broad framing. And also I think it's worth

274
00:20:56.839 --> 00:21:03.200
noting the original context that it out
in that you know, originally he was

275
00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:08.160
tasked with writing the preface to the
McDonald's Golden Key, and then you know,

276
00:21:08.279 --> 00:21:12.000
as he's seeking to tell this you
know, little story as a point

277
00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:17.599
of proving the power of fairy essentially, you know, it develops into a

278
00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:19.400
full story in its own right,
and of course he never finishes the original

279
00:21:19.400 --> 00:21:29.279
preface that he started out on Typical
Tulkien as recently going through I don't know

280
00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:33.160
what some book on the Inklings and
brought up the fact that he and C.

281
00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:37.759
S. Lewis had initially set out
to do a work together on language

282
00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:41.279
and meaning, but after Lewis wrote
a few pages, he gave it up

283
00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:45.160
because he realized Pulkien can't do collaborations
because he can't stick with a method long

284
00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:51.759
enough. I thought this is a
good anecdote to that point. But anyway,

285
00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:57.680
so obviously he's trying to say something
in many ways, I would class

286
00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:03.799
it in the same way as Niggle
and that it's about as close to allegory

287
00:22:03.799 --> 00:22:10.240
as Tolkien gets in that things mean
things right, right, And I think

288
00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:15.880
with the allegory bit, Tolkien did
say, you know, he always resists

289
00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:19.680
strict allegory, which which is like, you know, the famous example is

290
00:22:19.720 --> 00:22:25.200
Aslan is actually Jesus, you know, it's like and while Lewis did use

291
00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:29.160
that his books, Lewis's books are
more complicated than than just that. But

292
00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:33.640
for Tolkien he resisted the strict allegory. But he he said that his works

293
00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:37.240
can be allegorized, you know,
like they can be you can you can

294
00:22:37.319 --> 00:22:42.680
see the bits that kind of made
up the cake, you know, the

295
00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:45.839
pot of soup or whatever you want
to describe it. But it's not just

296
00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:48.160
that you know it can stand it. Basically, I think what the different

297
00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:53.240
I was just thinking about this today, Like the difference between strict allegory and

298
00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:57.480
something you can allegorize is the thing
you can allegoriz should be able to stand

299
00:22:57.480 --> 00:23:03.079
on its own, whereas something that
is a strict allegory you need something external

300
00:23:03.119 --> 00:23:07.559
to the story in order to understand
it, or in order to not just

301
00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:11.880
understand it, but just to actually
have the story itself. Like so I

302
00:23:11.880 --> 00:23:15.200
think that might be wrong, but
it may be too simplistic. But so

303
00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:18.559
you can allegorize the bits like I
did you know about and I didn't make

304
00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:22.440
that stuff up. That was an
article I read about him, it being

305
00:23:22.559 --> 00:23:27.960
like him being bereaved, that his
masterpiece is done and he's got to move

306
00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:30.880
on. And that's I think that
is there in the story. But it's

307
00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:36.000
not, like I said, it's
not just that. It is about fairyland

308
00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:40.079
too, you know, and that's
not something you can I think Tolkien said

309
00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:42.920
that the human elements of the story
can be allegorized, but the fairy elements

310
00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:48.880
much harder. It's much harder to
figure out what he's doing there, because

311
00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:52.200
the point he makes it un fairy
stories is like you can't really figure out

312
00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:57.559
fairy, you know, It's like
it's it's it's well, not impenetrable,

313
00:23:57.599 --> 00:24:03.759
it's indescribable. So yeah, and
I think that's a common theme we're going

314
00:24:03.799 --> 00:24:07.480
to see throughout the story, the
idea that fairy is beyond our control.

315
00:24:07.559 --> 00:24:11.440
We can't manage it, we can't
even really articulate what it is. We

316
00:24:11.480 --> 00:24:15.759
can't even are always articulated to ourselves, let alone to others. But the

317
00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:19.200
fact that, you know, he
begins his story with there was a village

318
00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:22.519
once, not very long ago for
those with long memories, not very far

319
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:26.240
away for those with long legs,
And so he starts off by making the

320
00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:30.680
point that the story he's about to
tell is not far away from any of

321
00:24:30.759 --> 00:24:33.319
us. Yeah, So that's how
he starts off. He's telling this story

322
00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:38.799
about something that happened not long ago, not far away, and we're told,

323
00:24:38.839 --> 00:24:42.759
as you said, that we're looking
forward to this great feast the Feasts

324
00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:45.799
of good Children in which the Master
Coke is going to make this great cake

325
00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:49.079
for these twenty four children who are
invited to attend. But one of the

326
00:24:49.079 --> 00:24:53.640
persons that really stood out to me
is when it describes the great Hall of

327
00:24:53.640 --> 00:24:57.599
the town and it says that it
was built of good stone and good oak

328
00:24:57.680 --> 00:25:02.519
and was well tended, though it
was no longer painted or gilded as it

329
00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:04.759
had been once upon a time,
And so we get this idea that the

330
00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:11.279
guilding, that the painting had worn
thin, and essentially they became fragmatist of

331
00:25:11.319 --> 00:25:15.640
sorts. Yeah, in that it
says it was maintained, but it lost

332
00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:19.480
its luster. It is beauty that
that itself was not maintained because it didn't

333
00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:25.240
serve a pragmatic purpose. And so
I think that really points to the disenchantment

334
00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:30.680
of the modern Arab And in fact, later on, when alf who's going

335
00:25:30.759 --> 00:25:34.279
to be revealed as the Elf King, sorry for the spoilers, I guess

336
00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:40.640
you know, it's a very short
story, right, he makes sure that

337
00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:45.599
the hall is actually repainted back to
his former glory, and at the time

338
00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:49.759
some of them are actually accusing him
of being imaginative and innovative and fantastical when

339
00:25:49.799 --> 00:25:53.559
you're really what he's doing is he's
re enchanting the Great Hall, bringing it

340
00:25:53.759 --> 00:25:56.400
back to what it used to be. Yeah, I think I think there

341
00:25:56.440 --> 00:26:00.160
was a line. No, I
think there was a line that said the

342
00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:03.279
townsfolks said they were some of them
complained that they thought the renovations were too

343
00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:07.920
modern or too new fangled, when
really Alpha was restoring them to something even

344
00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:11.240
older than what they knew, you
know, like what they they looked at

345
00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:15.400
as new fangled and like oh,
it's just modern nonsense, you know,

346
00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:18.119
and then like Alpha is like,
actually, no, this is much older

347
00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:22.599
than you say, I thought those
There's a lot of humor, you know,

348
00:26:22.680 --> 00:26:25.160
a lot of like subtle humor in
the story too, which is which

349
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:29.000
is good? Yeah, And I
appreciate that because so on one hand,

350
00:26:29.079 --> 00:26:33.000
it gets a Tokien's idea of enchantment, which fundamentally real enchantment is kind of

351
00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:37.759
like the magic, so to speak, of the elves, and that it

352
00:26:37.359 --> 00:26:42.079
brings out the qualities that are inherent
in something, the good qualities, and

353
00:26:42.759 --> 00:26:48.079
that's I think what the guilding here
kind of represents. And then it also

354
00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:55.079
gets to the classical idea that what
is good in the capital C conservative sense

355
00:26:55.400 --> 00:27:00.519
is actually something eternal and transcendent that
we should form ourselves too, not necessarily

356
00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:07.240
something we progress toward in time.
And so to reenact the good you have

357
00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:11.839
to go back, right, Yeah, And there's a lot of restoration being

358
00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:19.039
done in the town too, like
the children. When Elf is the great

359
00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:25.680
Cook and he's about to leave Smith, the main the main character Smith,

360
00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:29.720
he notices that the children at the
new at this great feast looked even more

361
00:27:29.759 --> 00:27:33.160
beautiful than he remembered in the past, you know, and just there's there's

362
00:27:33.240 --> 00:27:40.920
there seems to be this just rejuvenation
of the town of Ooton Major that happens

363
00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:47.039
after Elf has been working there.
So do you want to like go through

364
00:27:47.400 --> 00:27:52.799
just the basic plot. I think
they might be helpful be kind of talked

365
00:27:52.799 --> 00:27:56.200
about the main framework of it.
But basically, there's this you know,

366
00:27:56.319 --> 00:28:00.039
great cake. There's a great cook
and the first one we hear of he

367
00:28:00.039 --> 00:28:04.920
he leaves and it comes back and
he brings home this apprentice who which is

368
00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:08.559
unheard of because usually apprentice comes from
the village itself, but he's this apprentice

369
00:28:08.680 --> 00:28:14.119
comes from outside and his name is
Elf. And when when the first great

370
00:28:14.160 --> 00:28:15.920
cook in the story comes back.
His name is his name is Ryder,

371
00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:21.480
and he is more joyful and Mary
singing songs and which is not like him.

372
00:28:21.519 --> 00:28:22.559
You know. It wasn't like a
grump before, but he just didn't.

373
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:27.519
He wasn't the singing type, you
know. And now he's Mary and

374
00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:34.759
and full of he's dancing and singing. And then he leaves, you know,

375
00:28:36.559 --> 00:28:38.559
for good, and he doesn't come
back. And then Alf becomes well

376
00:28:38.559 --> 00:28:42.039
he's the apprentice still and that everybody
thinks he's too young to take over the

377
00:28:42.119 --> 00:28:45.759
job of great cook. So they
get this guy, Noakes, who I

378
00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:48.480
can't remember why they pick him.
Basically, he's like he's competent enough.

379
00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:53.640
He's competent enough to do it.
He's not very good at it, but

380
00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:57.559
he can he can do it,
and he's he doesn't really he's kind of

381
00:28:57.559 --> 00:29:03.440
a pragmatic guy. Noakes is kind
of I think I found that Noakes.

382
00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:11.839
The name Noaks is like an old
English term for fool that's from a website

383
00:29:11.839 --> 00:29:17.079
of like British slang or something.
I don't quote me on that, but

384
00:29:18.119 --> 00:29:22.599
I go correct, so we'll go
with it. Well, he you know,

385
00:29:22.599 --> 00:29:25.200
it's time for him to make the
great cake and Alf is his apprentice

386
00:29:25.200 --> 00:29:26.359
and help. You know. Basically, Alf is doing all the all the

387
00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:32.319
hard work, and Noaks has taking
credit for it. And Noakes wants to

388
00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:37.880
make a cake that has a fairy
queen hunt and because you know, children,

389
00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:41.839
children like two things, sweets and
fairies, and nobody grows out of

390
00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:47.680
sweets, but everybody grows out of
liking fairies. So he wants to basically

391
00:29:48.359 --> 00:29:52.079
just like to condescend to the children
and give them a nice fairy cake and

392
00:29:52.119 --> 00:29:55.599
stuff and Elf Alf isn't too happy
about that, but he goes along with

393
00:29:55.640 --> 00:30:00.960
it. And then they find this
star in this old spice bot. Because

394
00:30:00.960 --> 00:30:02.960
he's trying, he's freaking out.
Noaks is freaking out. He doesn't know

395
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:06.079
what he's doing, you know,
so he's looking back in recipes and stuff.

396
00:30:06.119 --> 00:30:08.599
He doesn't understand half of it.
And he finds this old spice box

397
00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:11.960
and get some get some spices out
of the cake, and he finds this

398
00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:18.119
little tarnished star and Alf says that
that star comes from fairy and Noakes.

399
00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:22.720
Noakes says, that's ridiculous. You
know, we wouldn't be funny. It

400
00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:25.519
wouldn't be funny if it wouldn't it
be funny if we put in the cake

401
00:30:25.599 --> 00:30:27.119
and then the you know, the
children got a surprized and they would be

402
00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:30.119
very, very funny. And Elf
said, well, no, it's not

403
00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:34.000
very funny. I don't think they'd
be funny at all. Which Tolkien actually

404
00:30:34.039 --> 00:30:37.039
mentions this, so again to go
back to on fairy stories. And now

405
00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:42.440
this is like a like a incarnation
of his ideas is you can have humor

406
00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:45.920
and satire in a fairy story,
but the one thing you can't make fun

407
00:30:45.960 --> 00:30:48.880
of, Tolkien says, is the
magic. And that's what Noaks is doing.

408
00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.000
Noaks is making fun of the magic. And Alf says, no,

409
00:30:52.119 --> 00:30:53.079
that's not not We'll do what you
want. We'll put it in the cake.

410
00:30:53.079 --> 00:30:56.839
We'll put all little trinkets in the
cake. The kids can get whatever,

411
00:30:56.960 --> 00:30:57.839
and they can have a fairy queen
on top of the cake. This

412
00:30:57.960 --> 00:31:03.559
is not my idea, is you're
right, notes, and but you can't

413
00:31:03.559 --> 00:31:07.720
make fun of it, and it's
not a laughing matter. And so you

414
00:31:07.720 --> 00:31:11.519
know, the cake is distributed and
people get prizes, some get to others

415
00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:17.599
get none. And one boy Smith, he's Smith's son, and that later

416
00:31:17.640 --> 00:31:21.200
becomes called Smith. He eats the
star. He doesn't know it. He

417
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:22.880
doesn't think he got a prize,
but he eats the star, and then

418
00:31:22.960 --> 00:31:29.279
on his tenth birthday, he starts
singing kind of he notices the beauty of

419
00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:30.960
the natural world, and he starts
singing, coughs the star up, and

420
00:31:32.519 --> 00:31:36.400
before it could float away, he
slaps on his head and that star gives

421
00:31:36.519 --> 00:31:40.759
basically is a passport to let him
go to and from Fairyland whenever he wants.

422
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:44.720
And so then the story kind of
progresses from there. But that's that's

423
00:31:44.759 --> 00:31:49.440
the basic that's the kind of the
basic story is his sort of adventures in

424
00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:56.559
Fairyland and and yeah, everything after
that, and he gets older and has

425
00:31:56.599 --> 00:31:59.839
to pass it on to the next
person. So yeah, that's that's a

426
00:31:59.839 --> 00:32:01.559
bi I just wanted to lay that
out because if people haven't, you know,

427
00:32:02.160 --> 00:32:06.200
yeah, fair enough. Yeah,
that's helpful. So obviously there all

428
00:32:06.279 --> 00:32:08.119
kinds of places we can jump around
the conversation, and I don't have a

429
00:32:08.119 --> 00:32:13.799
particular agenda in mind. One thing
I was thinking about is when the cake

430
00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:16.000
gets divided up, and you know, all these coins in it, and

431
00:32:16.359 --> 00:32:20.759
twenty four coins, right, one
for each child theoretically, even though some

432
00:32:20.839 --> 00:32:22.400
get more. Yeah, they were
like, I don't know if it says

433
00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:25.720
like little trinkets, you know,
it's the King cake, you know.

434
00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:31.960
Uh, you have little prizes kind
of hidden in there with the main prize

435
00:32:31.960 --> 00:32:37.839
in the center, and so you
divide up the cake, and theoretically every

436
00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:39.079
kid should get one. But the
Noake says, all the fairy treat is

437
00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:45.240
very quickly. Fairy Queen is very
tricky. She might give two to Billy

438
00:32:45.319 --> 00:32:50.440
and might give zero Susie, you
know. And and Elf is not happy

439
00:32:50.440 --> 00:32:54.559
about that at all. He's very
He's just very serious about the whole thing.

440
00:32:54.920 --> 00:33:00.319
Because reality, like these these creek
these reality does exist, and Noakes

441
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:04.160
is kind of making fun of it. Right, So Noaks does not have

442
00:33:04.240 --> 00:33:08.279
the right sort of piety, I
guess, the right approach to it.

443
00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:15.200
And so there is a kind of
doom or providence at play here in that

444
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:19.440
there's a certain sense in which,
okay, yes, it looks very random

445
00:33:19.480 --> 00:33:23.519
the way the treasure are getting distributed, but at the same time Smith was

446
00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:29.400
destined to get this star, and
so there's a purpose at play here.

447
00:33:29.559 --> 00:33:34.400
It reminds me of in my medieval
philosophy class that recently led a study on

448
00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:37.759
boetheis the constellation of Philosophy, which
is something that I've read once a year

449
00:33:37.759 --> 00:33:42.920
for the last like five years or
so. And yeah, he talks about

450
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:47.640
the relationship between fate and providence.
And so what we describe as fate is

451
00:33:47.680 --> 00:33:53.480
something like the chain of the web
rather of cause and effect around us as

452
00:33:53.519 --> 00:34:00.240
we can perceive it through our finite
little perspectives. And it looks it looks

453
00:34:00.359 --> 00:34:05.079
chaotic, It looks like things just
kind of happen. But at the same

454
00:34:05.119 --> 00:34:09.119
time, ultimately there is a providence
that stands above the wheel of fortune that

455
00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:15.239
actually leads to real purpose, even
though most of the time we can't hope

456
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:20.639
to perceive exactly what that is.
And so I kind of see something similar

457
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:23.639
at play here, and that,
you know what looks chaotic, the fact

458
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:28.639
that some get to some get zero. Ultimately, the star is going to

459
00:34:28.719 --> 00:34:30.960
end up exactly where it's meant to
be, just as it will when it

460
00:34:30.960 --> 00:34:34.320
gets passed on to the next child. That even though you know at the

461
00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:37.679
end the star gets baked into the
next cake for the next child, it's

462
00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:43.559
decided ahead of time who's going to
go to right through a seemingly random process,

463
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:47.480
right, yep, yep. The
the providence of the elves, you

464
00:34:47.480 --> 00:34:52.239
know, and you can allegorize that. And I don't know if I would

465
00:34:52.400 --> 00:34:54.559
do that necessarily to be like,
well, we have the king and the

466
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:59.360
queen, you know, it could
be marry and you know Christ yeah,

467
00:34:59.679 --> 00:35:00.440
you know, I mean, and
I don't know if that works that well,

468
00:35:00.440 --> 00:35:06.239
but it's but yes, that there's
definitely a level of providence there.

469
00:35:06.280 --> 00:35:08.960
And actually I think in the later
on the story is revealed that from the

470
00:35:09.039 --> 00:35:15.559
Queen when she's talking to Smith,
and she says, I, you got

471
00:35:15.559 --> 00:35:20.880
the star because you desired to see
me because of your desire. Because he

472
00:35:20.920 --> 00:35:24.599
saw the the little fairy queen on
the cake, and he had this intense

473
00:35:24.639 --> 00:35:30.880
desire to see the fairy queen and
that's why he got the star, right,

474
00:35:30.920 --> 00:35:36.159
because of that intense desire, And
she's he was ashamed that, Well,

475
00:35:36.360 --> 00:35:37.800
the star is a gift too.
It's a gift from providence, right,

476
00:35:37.800 --> 00:35:42.800
It's not just something he deserved.
But he was ashamed because of the

477
00:35:43.719 --> 00:35:46.599
fairy little trinket on top of the
cake because it was such a poor represent

478
00:35:46.719 --> 00:35:51.840
representation of the fairy queen and her
grandeur, you know, and in her

479
00:35:51.920 --> 00:35:57.119
stature as as this magnificent creature and
she says something along the lines of,

480
00:35:57.639 --> 00:36:00.599
don't worry about that. We're not
a I'm not a d by that.

481
00:36:00.679 --> 00:36:05.559
For some people, that's the only
glimpse of fairy that they'll ever get,

482
00:36:05.800 --> 00:36:10.440
you know, and that's sometimes it's
enough to awaken something in them. And

483
00:36:10.440 --> 00:36:17.239
and so like even the little like, you know, the little caricatures of

484
00:36:19.159 --> 00:36:23.039
grand and great things can be enough
sometimes to awaken something deep inside you.

485
00:36:23.519 --> 00:36:30.440
So yeah, and so he got
the star as a gift, you know,

486
00:36:30.599 --> 00:36:31.360
is this and it wasn't his,
you know, he didn't get to

487
00:36:31.400 --> 00:36:35.840
keep it. But it is kind
of mysterious as too, like what the

488
00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:37.719
purpose of all this was? What
was the purpose of him getting the star?

489
00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:43.639
Why? Why do that? Why
allow him access to Fairyland? But

490
00:36:43.679 --> 00:36:47.079
then he's wandering around Fairyland and he
thinks he can go wherever he want,

491
00:36:47.159 --> 00:36:53.519
you know, and he really can't. And and so he's kind of presumptuous

492
00:36:53.559 --> 00:36:58.800
in that, and the Queen kind
of rebukes him initially and says, well,

493
00:36:59.039 --> 00:37:02.320
you're you've grown bold to starbrow,
you know, And he's like,

494
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:06.440
oh, crap, I actually can't
go everywhere I want to with this,

495
00:37:06.519 --> 00:37:09.880
even though I thought I could.
So yeah, I'm kind of rambling now,

496
00:37:12.679 --> 00:37:16.199
probably stop talking. Well, it's
more rambling is more or less his

497
00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:22.199
encounters with Fairy, when he has
all these disconnected encounters, and really back

498
00:37:22.199 --> 00:37:27.840
to the Starbrough idea. And so
I think it's interesting that he eats the

499
00:37:27.880 --> 00:37:30.840
star did the cake. That's originally
how he comes to attain it, but

500
00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:35.760
then sometime later he basically regurgitates it
and the slaps it on his forehead.

501
00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:39.039
Right, yeah, it's just a
weird thing. It's weird. I mean,

502
00:37:39.079 --> 00:37:43.599
I have some ideas. I mean, you have any thoughts on what's

503
00:37:43.639 --> 00:37:46.480
happening there, you know, I
don't. I mean, that is an

504
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:52.000
odd way to go about it.
And there's something about communion there in some

505
00:37:52.039 --> 00:37:54.800
way, you know, because when
you're sharing, you're sharing a meal with

506
00:37:54.840 --> 00:38:00.239
someone, you're communting with them.
And take two is kind of like this.

507
00:38:00.199 --> 00:38:02.559
I'm not this isn't I can't remember
where I heard this from, but

508
00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:06.880
this is not original my original idea. But cake cake is kind of this

509
00:38:07.320 --> 00:38:09.719
superfluous thing. Right, it's not
the meal, it's the thing that comes

510
00:38:09.760 --> 00:38:14.159
after the meal, and it's it's
not something you need, right, it's

511
00:38:14.159 --> 00:38:16.719
but this is something that's delightful and
very very nice and can be very beautiful,

512
00:38:17.320 --> 00:38:21.440
and that it that kind of is
fairy in in a way. You

513
00:38:21.440 --> 00:38:23.400
know, you don't need fairy,
you know. And Tolkien says that,

514
00:38:23.559 --> 00:38:27.719
I think in on fairy stories you
don't. You don't need it. The

515
00:38:27.920 --> 00:38:32.039
the thing you need is humility,
you know. That's what it's a humility

516
00:38:32.079 --> 00:38:37.079
is enough, you know. So
it is maybe something to do with that.

517
00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:44.400
And it's when he's he's he turns
ten and he notices he sees the

518
00:38:44.440 --> 00:38:46.159
beauty and the birds, you know, the natural world, and he starts

519
00:38:46.159 --> 00:38:50.559
singing, and I think that's when
he coughs it up, and before it

520
00:38:50.559 --> 00:38:53.000
looks like it's about to float away, and in a panic, he slaps

521
00:38:53.039 --> 00:38:55.880
it on his forehead to keep it
from I don't know why he thought that

522
00:38:55.920 --> 00:38:59.719
would work, you know, you
just to hold his hand there forever,

523
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:01.360
you know, But it stuck to
his head and then it kind of like,

524
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:07.039
I don't know, meld it in
with his forehead and became not quite

525
00:39:07.079 --> 00:39:08.880
invisible. But if you weren't looking
for it, you couldn't see it,

526
00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:15.599
you know, which is probably something
to do with you know, have those

527
00:39:15.599 --> 00:39:20.679
who advised to see, you know, let them see yeah, it's still

528
00:39:20.679 --> 00:39:23.400
like the regurgitation bit. I don't
know why. I mean almost wonder and

529
00:39:24.159 --> 00:39:29.039
I mean obviously whenever I'm saying this
might mean this. I'm talking in terms

530
00:39:29.079 --> 00:39:32.039
of echoes, not necessarily direct relation. But yeah, yeah, I mean,

531
00:39:32.480 --> 00:39:37.800
I wonder if the point is that
fairy, like many of the most

532
00:39:37.800 --> 00:39:42.559
important parts of meaning in life,
is something that you consume, is something

533
00:39:42.559 --> 00:39:45.360
you encounter on a level of ontology, right, a level of a being

534
00:39:45.519 --> 00:39:50.360
before it ascends the level of knowing. And so I want to he has

535
00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:53.960
to consume it and then at some
point future works through a system. I

536
00:39:54.480 --> 00:39:59.079
suppose it's being rises to the top. That's when it then gets imprinted on

537
00:39:59.079 --> 00:40:01.400
his mind, right, I think
I think that's I think that's right.

538
00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:09.840
So Tolkien actually taught or maybe it
was Vernon Flieger in that essay I recommended

539
00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:16.440
people read from the Tolkien estate.
Let's see. Basically, the idea is

540
00:40:16.639 --> 00:40:22.760
you don't have to understand the enchantment
for it not for it to have an

541
00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:25.079
effect on you. Yeah. I
don't remember where I wrote that but or

542
00:40:25.119 --> 00:40:29.559
where she wrote that, but basically
that's the idea. So he doesn't know

543
00:40:29.639 --> 00:40:31.079
he's eating it, right, He
doesn't know it's in there. He thought

544
00:40:31.079 --> 00:40:37.519
he didn't get a prize, but
then he he consumed it. And then

545
00:40:37.199 --> 00:40:40.760
later on, after he regurgitates and
slaps on his forehead, he comes to

546
00:40:40.880 --> 00:40:45.000
understand. Like you said, he
comes to understand the meaning behind it.

547
00:40:45.159 --> 00:40:47.000
But it was having an effect on
him either way. He didn't have to

548
00:40:47.199 --> 00:40:52.079
understand the He doesn't have to understand
the magic for it to have an effect.

549
00:40:53.480 --> 00:41:00.800
There seems to be I almost said
sacramental element there. Yeah, yeah,

550
00:41:00.920 --> 00:41:05.239
yeah, being is more foundational than
knowing, right, yep, Yes,

551
00:41:05.639 --> 00:41:08.840
you need to basically you need to
live out so in the in the

552
00:41:08.920 --> 00:41:12.440
Christian life. And now I'm not
very good at this and not a theologian,

553
00:41:12.519 --> 00:41:15.079
so if I'm wrong, you know, don't don't attack me, send

554
00:41:15.079 --> 00:41:22.800
all your anger emails to. But
you need to basically live it out before

555
00:41:22.880 --> 00:41:25.800
you can understand it better. Right, So, I mean that's just true

556
00:41:25.840 --> 00:41:30.079
of life. You know, there
are passages in scripture that there are just

557
00:41:30.119 --> 00:41:34.760
words in a page. You know, until you start that phase of your

558
00:41:34.760 --> 00:41:38.800
life you're actually living like through you
know the death of a loved one or

559
00:41:39.440 --> 00:41:44.440
or you know, persecution or or
whatever you know, and you start,

560
00:41:44.599 --> 00:41:47.360
you live it and then you understand. You understand things better right when you're

561
00:41:47.360 --> 00:41:51.920
living it out. And so that's
kind of how it works. Now,

562
00:41:52.000 --> 00:42:00.000
understanding is important and and reason is
very important too, and we can't lose

563
00:42:00.119 --> 00:42:04.960
our reason. But things like faith
is prior to reason. I believe that's

564
00:42:05.159 --> 00:42:13.239
correct. So faith is a gift
right and it's something that we need to

565
00:42:13.280 --> 00:42:17.519
ask for to increase to. So
so God increases our faith, you know.

566
00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:23.480
That's why in like the so I
attend the traditional form of the Roman

567
00:42:23.559 --> 00:42:29.960
right in the in the missile,
it's when you're about to receive the Eucharist.

568
00:42:30.440 --> 00:42:34.079
It says basically, it says,
I don't believe enough in this,

569
00:42:34.320 --> 00:42:37.320
Lord, please help me believe more
in this, you know, because because

570
00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:40.960
it's it's something that we don't understand
completely. You know. It's like God's

571
00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:45.719
being, like the incarnation to God
is made man like what does that mean?

572
00:42:45.880 --> 00:42:52.400
Like he's the beyond infinity, you
know, becoming like us and elevating

573
00:42:52.519 --> 00:42:58.440
us higher, you know, and
that that should break our minds, you

574
00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:01.639
know. It's that's there's almost something
like I don't know if you're fans of

575
00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:05.000
the show or fans with like love
Craft and HP love Craft. There's almost

576
00:43:05.039 --> 00:43:13.119
something like love crafting about Christianity and
that it is it should it should inspired

577
00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:15.719
Like Lovecraft was all about, you
know, the monstrous other, you know,

578
00:43:15.800 --> 00:43:19.639
and nihilism. You know, there's
the the at the center of the

579
00:43:19.719 --> 00:43:23.880
universe is just you know, insane, massive, you know whatever, unrationality.

580
00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:28.119
But that's not what we believe,
right, but it is kind of

581
00:43:28.199 --> 00:43:30.760
useful to have that, Like,
you know, God and the sacraments and

582
00:43:30.800 --> 00:43:36.239
all this stuff are so far beyond
us that we can understand them to a

583
00:43:36.239 --> 00:43:39.159
degree, but like there's this mystery
there that like should would break our brains

584
00:43:39.159 --> 00:43:44.559
if God actually like revealed That's like
in in Job, you know, God,

585
00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:46.960
job is like why did all this
happened? God? Why why did

586
00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:52.440
my you know, we're right his
wife didn't die, but why did all

587
00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:53.599
my kids die? When I lose
my house? Why am I covered in

588
00:43:53.679 --> 00:43:57.480
scabs? And God's like I could
show you, but you wouldn't understand it

589
00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:00.599
even if I did, you know, which is not a satisfying answer,

590
00:44:00.599 --> 00:44:07.719
but it's it's like it's just beyond
us, you know, and we need

591
00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:14.440
to have that trust that these sacrament
these sacraments and like these images and symbols

592
00:44:15.559 --> 00:44:20.559
they haven't do something right, and
they do do things. We have miracles

593
00:44:20.559 --> 00:44:23.880
to kind of attest to it.
But it's, yeah, the faith proceeds

594
00:44:23.960 --> 00:44:31.559
understanding. I think that with Smith
consuming the star without knowing it, that

595
00:44:31.840 --> 00:44:35.880
is manifested later with him kind of
understanding more of what it's all about.

596
00:44:36.039 --> 00:44:37.960
Now, he doesn't get to a
complete understanding of everything, obviously, but

597
00:44:38.639 --> 00:44:43.880
he has more of an understanding.
He's able to live that out more so,

598
00:44:44.159 --> 00:44:46.119
right, And it does, you
know, with the star on his

599
00:44:46.199 --> 00:44:52.760
forehead, it turns into something of
a limited passport in that it seems like

600
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:57.199
he can interferry now more or less
that will at least it seems that way,

601
00:44:57.559 --> 00:45:00.639
even though he doesn't have complete control
once he gets there, right,

602
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:04.639
And so, I mean, I
think that has something to do with the

603
00:45:04.679 --> 00:45:09.719
real internalization of fairy from heart to
mind. You can in a sense enter

604
00:45:09.760 --> 00:45:15.199
into it willingly, although you're still
entering something perilous right where it says that

605
00:45:15.559 --> 00:45:21.440
there are great evils, but mortal
weapons can't really do anything there, right,

606
00:45:21.519 --> 00:45:24.119
Yeah, they wouldn't. It's be
of noe of small consequence, you

607
00:45:24.159 --> 00:45:28.400
know, And yeah, the star
protects him from the lesser evils. And

608
00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:31.760
he's guarded from the greater evils by
probably the queen and the king. You

609
00:45:31.760 --> 00:45:35.880
know. It doesn't say it's not
he's not. I don't know if he's

610
00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:40.599
aware of the fact that he's guarded
from these things, you know. And

611
00:45:40.679 --> 00:45:45.119
so he's kind of wandering around and
he gets into trouble sometimes when he goes

612
00:45:45.559 --> 00:45:50.400
he goes to the lake. It's
like this lake with the like fire weeds,

613
00:45:50.440 --> 00:45:53.119
you know, and like this the
fire creatures below the water, and

614
00:45:53.159 --> 00:45:55.559
he wants to go down in there
and explore because he's like, well,

615
00:45:55.559 --> 00:45:59.920
hey, I'm I'm Smith the explorer. I can kind of do whatever around

616
00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:05.079
And he steps foot on this like
water, which turns out to be almost

617
00:46:05.119 --> 00:46:08.000
like a glass like he can't penetrate
the water because it's it's more real than

618
00:46:08.039 --> 00:46:13.239
he is, and he's blown away
by this wind and this birch tree saves

619
00:46:13.320 --> 00:46:15.960
him while also being very injured in
the process. And basically the birch tree

620
00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:21.360
says, you shouldn't be here,
like it's you shouldn't be here. This

621
00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:25.599
is not for you. And so
he is learning this as he is going

622
00:46:25.639 --> 00:46:30.119
that, you know, the star
gives him permission to be certain places,

623
00:46:30.920 --> 00:46:34.519
but it's a limited passport. It's
like you have a guest pass at like

624
00:46:35.159 --> 00:46:37.280
you know, some secure facility.
You can only go in certain rooms.

625
00:46:37.320 --> 00:46:40.400
You know, you can't go in
the top secret, you know, a

626
00:46:40.440 --> 00:46:44.400
control room. Everything happens like you
don't have that right, you know.

627
00:46:45.320 --> 00:46:50.599
And then the elf Queen is very
forgiving because he's then stumbles upon you know,

628
00:46:50.760 --> 00:46:53.800
her dancing with all of her maidens, you know, and he wants

629
00:46:53.880 --> 00:46:57.159
to dance. He wants to go
in there too. When he wants to

630
00:46:57.199 --> 00:47:00.639
dance with them, and she calls
him presumptuous, you know, not in

631
00:47:00.679 --> 00:47:02.400
a mean way, but she's like
you're or something like that, you're getting

632
00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:07.039
over bold, you know, you
know, like this is not you.

633
00:47:07.039 --> 00:47:09.920
You should not be here. But
then they dance with him anyway, you

634
00:47:09.960 --> 00:47:15.679
know. And Corey Elson, the
Tolkien professor of podcast, he's got a

635
00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:20.559
two part series on this story,
which is really good. Basically, in

636
00:47:20.599 --> 00:47:27.199
folklore, you know, the the
wanderer comes across the the dancing fairies,

637
00:47:27.599 --> 00:47:30.559
and as soon as he's discovered,
they leave, or so he disappears or

638
00:47:30.559 --> 00:47:34.119
something. You know, usually it's
not good, like something bad happens,

639
00:47:34.119 --> 00:47:37.000
but in this case, they do
let him dance with them, but he's

640
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:43.079
only allowed to dance with them when
they share their swiftness and power and joy

641
00:47:43.199 --> 00:47:49.239
with him. Otherwise he probably would
have been unmade dancing, so right,

642
00:47:49.719 --> 00:47:52.480
Yeah, when I first came across
the story and it gets to this point

643
00:47:52.559 --> 00:47:57.719
where he's now invited into the fairy
ring, you know, as he can

644
00:47:57.800 --> 00:48:00.320
help. It's probably not going to
go up for because typically doesn't. But

645
00:48:00.400 --> 00:48:06.159
yeah, he's almost made very like
for the purposes of joining in the dance

646
00:48:06.760 --> 00:48:08.920
only for a short time, and
Tolkien's very clear only for a time.

647
00:48:09.119 --> 00:48:14.840
For for a short while he's able
to share in their nature to a degree,

648
00:48:15.320 --> 00:48:20.559
and then after that he then she
actually tells him to Neil right,

649
00:48:20.599 --> 00:48:24.039
to take his rightful position. That's
something that initially he wasn't sure he was

650
00:48:24.079 --> 00:48:29.360
even worthy to do. But now
that they're dance together, order is put

651
00:48:29.360 --> 00:48:32.480
into place and she says, Okay, Neil, take your place. And

652
00:48:32.519 --> 00:48:39.400
then we're told that basically very in
the primary world almost overlap for a time,

653
00:48:39.639 --> 00:48:43.840
and it's almost like he's not quite
sure where he is, right right,

654
00:48:44.320 --> 00:48:47.679
Yeah, So for a brief so
I have a quote here, for

655
00:48:47.719 --> 00:48:52.960
a brief moment, the two worlds
are actually in union. So this is

656
00:48:52.960 --> 00:48:57.199
from an essay. Oh, what's
who wrote this? Oh? Here it

657
00:48:57.239 --> 00:49:01.119
is Margaret Salmon's from a mislare.
So he seemed to be both in the

658
00:49:01.119 --> 00:49:05.199
world and in fairy and also outside
them and surveying them, so that he

659
00:49:05.239 --> 00:49:08.119
was at once in bereavement and in
ownership and in peace, which she's putting

660
00:49:08.119 --> 00:49:14.480
her hands on him. Like you
said, he was reluctant to even kneel

661
00:49:14.760 --> 00:49:19.079
because he's so far beneath her that
it would be, like I think Cory

662
00:49:19.079 --> 00:49:22.079
Elson said, it would be like
a worm kneeling to a god. You

663
00:49:22.079 --> 00:49:24.840
know, it just wouldn't that God
wouldn't even notice. But she elevates him

664
00:49:24.840 --> 00:49:30.119
to the level of a servant right
and puts her hands on him, and

665
00:49:30.119 --> 00:49:35.000
then he has his experience of being
in both worlds, kind of like uniting

666
00:49:35.239 --> 00:49:39.480
the two worlds together. And part
of what Tolkien talks about in unfairy stories

667
00:49:39.960 --> 00:49:46.800
is this idea of restoration and recovery
and constellation. And when I understand consolation,

668
00:49:47.199 --> 00:49:53.280
the Fairland is about restoring, or
is about fulfilling ancient desires that we'll

669
00:49:53.320 --> 00:50:01.639
have, desires that stem primarily from
the fall, and this idea of like

670
00:50:01.760 --> 00:50:08.320
trying to restore a prelapse areaan sort
of the pre fall sort of integrity where

671
00:50:09.039 --> 00:50:13.199
if you ever read you, You've
read Perilandra I. C. S.

672
00:50:13.280 --> 00:50:17.440
Lewis's where he talks about how when
he goes to Parallel, when he goes

673
00:50:17.480 --> 00:50:23.800
to Venus. Basically, Ransom in
that story is a realization that you know,

674
00:50:23.840 --> 00:50:29.920
in this world and on Mars myth
in fact and history are one and

675
00:50:29.960 --> 00:50:35.760
the same. They're not separate like
they are for us. And with that

676
00:50:35.800 --> 00:50:40.480
with fairy fairy Land, that sort
of like consolation. It's like a fulfillment

677
00:50:40.519 --> 00:50:45.079
of our deep desires of like reunification
of all all those things you know with

678
00:50:45.079 --> 00:50:50.159
with each other. So when the
two worlds, he's in haapbitening both worlds

679
00:50:50.199 --> 00:50:53.199
at the same time. To me, that seems like he's Tolkien what he's

680
00:50:53.239 --> 00:50:59.360
using this kind of bridge the gap
between Fairyland and the primary world. That's

681
00:50:59.639 --> 00:51:05.519
another instance of unfairy stories being that
like the primary inspiration for this for this

682
00:51:05.840 --> 00:51:08.880
Smith story, right, and so
we get the idea that fairy and the

683
00:51:08.920 --> 00:51:15.360
primary world are both real worlds that
belong together. Right, But of course

684
00:51:15.400 --> 00:51:20.320
the modern spirit is to hold the
one and dismiss the other, and so

685
00:51:20.440 --> 00:51:28.159
doing becomes a fractured reality exactly.
Yep. I love this theme of bereavement

686
00:51:28.480 --> 00:51:31.920
and peace going together, and it's
it's something like the ownership that brings them

687
00:51:31.920 --> 00:51:37.639
together into the whole person. And
this is a common theme we see throughout

688
00:51:37.639 --> 00:51:42.679
Tolkien, the unification of joy and
sorrow. One of my one of my

689
00:51:42.719 --> 00:51:50.199
favorite lines from Tolkien altogether comes from
The Silmarillion. In talking about Almo,

690
00:51:50.360 --> 00:51:54.159
he makes the point, I remember
the exact wording, if joyful is the

691
00:51:54.199 --> 00:51:59.320
fountain that rises in the sun,
its roots are in sorrows unfathomed are the

692
00:51:59.320 --> 00:52:05.400
foundations of the earth. Yeah,
and that is I think a profoundly true

693
00:52:05.440 --> 00:52:08.039
idea, is profoundly Christian idea for
sure, the idea that ultimately it is

694
00:52:08.039 --> 00:52:13.079
the Cross of Christ that is the
true world tree, you know, holding

695
00:52:13.119 --> 00:52:17.239
together reality. And that's one of
the first things that really brought me into

696
00:52:17.280 --> 00:52:22.159
Tolkien. You know. It's we've
already talked about the sum but fantasy is

697
00:52:22.199 --> 00:52:28.639
often seen as escape in a negative
sense, like you're somehow fleeing reality.

698
00:52:28.719 --> 00:52:32.199
But no, what talking shows us
again and again is that fantasy in its

699
00:52:32.679 --> 00:52:38.039
best form brings you to engage with
reality. More profoundly than you're inclined to

700
00:52:38.079 --> 00:52:45.400
here primary world existence, right,
Yeah, and he mentions, you know

701
00:52:45.400 --> 00:52:51.320
who's primarily concerned with escape, you
know, as jailer's right concerned with that.

702
00:52:52.440 --> 00:52:59.920
Yeah. And this idea of joy
coming out of sorrow, uh is

703
00:53:00.519 --> 00:53:05.679
basically the Christian idea. You know, with the resurrection of Christ, the

704
00:53:05.679 --> 00:53:09.639
incarnation leading to the resurrection, it
looked like, you know, on the

705
00:53:09.639 --> 00:53:14.760
cross, it's like Christ was defeated, right, he like this enemies one.

706
00:53:15.639 --> 00:53:19.840
But through the resurrection he you know, oh death, where is thy

707
00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:22.679
sting? You know, he defeats
death and he but nobody expected that except

708
00:53:22.679 --> 00:53:27.599
for maybe our blessed mother, But
everybody was like, well, he's dead,

709
00:53:27.639 --> 00:53:30.880
he's gone, you know, and
then he comes back. And so

710
00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:34.960
that's the idea that in fairy stories
too, And Tolkien said, it's not

711
00:53:35.400 --> 00:53:38.280
really a complete fairy story until you
have that sort of happy ending that you

712
00:53:38.320 --> 00:53:45.800
could task through the sudden joyful turn
of the story where where everything, I

713
00:53:45.800 --> 00:53:49.880
don't say everything works out, but
like, you know, the darkness is

714
00:53:49.880 --> 00:53:54.519
defeated and there's there's light and and
he says that the Christian story is like

715
00:53:54.639 --> 00:53:59.639
the fairy story, you know,
and so that's why you see these,

716
00:53:59.679 --> 00:54:02.239
that's why there's a genre of storytelling
is the fairy tale. You know.

717
00:54:02.280 --> 00:54:07.039
He distinguishes it from tragedy. It's
like the it's like the opposite of tragedy,

718
00:54:07.079 --> 00:54:10.559
you know. And so it is
a comedy in the original sense of

719
00:54:10.559 --> 00:54:15.119
the word. Is like the happy
ending, right, things start off bad

720
00:54:15.159 --> 00:54:16.920
and they get better, whereas tragedy
is the other way, and start off

721
00:54:16.960 --> 00:54:22.519
good and get worse, you know. And so I think there's a happy

722
00:54:22.599 --> 00:54:28.599
ending with Smith, but it is
it is kind of bittersweet ending where he

723
00:54:28.639 --> 00:54:30.159
needs to give up the star.
You know, he's an old man now,

724
00:54:30.159 --> 00:54:35.000
he's had his his time with it. And he actually when when Elf,

725
00:54:35.440 --> 00:54:39.480
you know who does turn out to
be the the fairy King, the

726
00:54:39.480 --> 00:54:44.639
Elf King. He and Elf obviously
you know there's like Elf Elf Alf Elf.

727
00:54:44.760 --> 00:54:49.599
You know it's told he's not subtle
in that one. But you got

728
00:54:49.599 --> 00:54:52.199
angry, you know at Alf's like
this is mine. You can't It's like

729
00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:55.559
this, this came to me,
it's mine, you know, the bio

730
00:54:55.719 --> 00:54:59.960
moment, Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yep. He had that Billbo moment

731
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:01.119
where he's like, no, no, this is this is fine. You

732
00:55:01.119 --> 00:55:05.840
can't have this, but he does
give it up on his own free will.

733
00:55:05.880 --> 00:55:10.519
He does, and that, from
what I read, allows him to

734
00:55:10.519 --> 00:55:15.960
then choose the successor. You know, we actually the queen. The queen

735
00:55:15.039 --> 00:55:20.800
gives the message to Smith to let
the king know, to let to say,

736
00:55:20.880 --> 00:55:22.840
let him choose, you know,
that's what he's supposed to say to

737
00:55:22.840 --> 00:55:24.639
the king, so that he says
that to Elf, not knowing he was

738
00:55:24.679 --> 00:55:29.400
actually the king. And then Alf
reveals himself to be the king, and

739
00:55:29.400 --> 00:55:30.880
and he was Smith, you know, so like the he and that let

740
00:55:30.960 --> 00:55:37.960
him choose? Was let let Smith
choose? And again kind of mysterious,

741
00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:39.519
like as why why was Smith chosen? You know, well, he desired

742
00:55:39.519 --> 00:55:43.800
to see the fairy. Well,
I mean why did he you know,

743
00:55:44.719 --> 00:55:45.559
he was allowed in the faerry?
What was the point of that? You

744
00:55:45.599 --> 00:55:50.840
know, it's it's I think it
has to do with restoration or restoring the

745
00:55:50.880 --> 00:55:55.559
town, restoring the magic of everyday
things, you know. Uh. And

746
00:55:57.239 --> 00:56:00.679
Smith was you know he when this
are we hit the star in his forehead?

747
00:56:00.719 --> 00:56:05.320
You know, he would his his
craft, his smith and craft got

748
00:56:05.400 --> 00:56:08.119
more beautiful. You know. He
surpassed the skills of his father. And

749
00:56:08.159 --> 00:56:13.880
not only were his items useful.
They were also intricately beautiful and and wonderful

750
00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:15.079
of the behold. And he was
saying, you know, he was singing,

751
00:56:15.119 --> 00:56:16.880
people would come to listen to him
things. So he wrote, like

752
00:56:16.960 --> 00:56:22.960
music and joy into the town.
And so this the town is slowly kind

753
00:56:22.960 --> 00:56:29.440
of being restored to something more complete, right, And that, I mean

754
00:56:29.679 --> 00:56:34.199
is the ultimate defense of the fairy
story rights. You get that kind of

755
00:56:34.280 --> 00:56:40.039
enchantment that allows you to live more
authentically human lives in the here and now.

756
00:56:40.599 --> 00:56:45.920
And even if you're doing a lot
of the thing things everything everyone else

757
00:56:45.960 --> 00:56:50.000
is doing, you're bringing a different
quality to it. You're bringing that transcendence

758
00:56:50.039 --> 00:56:52.760
to it of the true, the
good, and the beautiful. KidGuard talks

759
00:56:52.760 --> 00:56:58.840
about something very similar in Fear and
Trembling, which is primarily about the life

760
00:56:58.880 --> 00:57:01.559
of faith drawing on for him and
Isaac, and you know, he makes

761
00:57:01.599 --> 00:57:06.880
the point that the Knight of Faith, the true Christian essentially on the surface,

762
00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:12.320
might look very much like everyone else
in that you know, he's going

763
00:57:12.320 --> 00:57:15.280
about his life, he's raising a
family, he has a job, he's

764
00:57:15.400 --> 00:57:21.000
doing mundane things, but it's all
done with a kind of purpose that makes

765
00:57:21.079 --> 00:57:24.320
mundane things more than mundane things.
Right. I mean, I think we

766
00:57:24.719 --> 00:57:30.800
see something similar to that in that
now Smith without the star, he starts

767
00:57:30.800 --> 00:57:34.079
to do mundane things. He starts
to teach his kid, for example,

768
00:57:34.159 --> 00:57:37.920
you know, how to be a
good smith. And he's doing these practical

769
00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:42.679
things though with the enchantment of where
he's been, which in turn gets passed

770
00:57:42.679 --> 00:57:47.400
on in seemingly mundane ways. Right. Well, it's you know, with

771
00:57:47.519 --> 00:57:52.000
when you're a Christian and you know, I think when you're doing your you're

772
00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:53.920
living your life. You know,
you have Okay, I have four kids,

773
00:57:53.920 --> 00:57:59.039
you know, and it's it's really
easy to let the details kind of

774
00:57:59.079 --> 00:58:01.000
take over, you know, and
just focused on like, okay, and

775
00:58:01.000 --> 00:58:05.679
I gotta do this, I do
that, I gotta do changing diaper,

776
00:58:05.719 --> 00:58:08.039
I gotta feed this one who won't
stop screaming. I got you know.

777
00:58:08.320 --> 00:58:13.239
You know, you gotta not lose
your patience with your kids when they are

778
00:58:13.360 --> 00:58:16.599
being little turds, you know,
which happens. But in that and I'm

779
00:58:16.599 --> 00:58:21.239
not good at this, by the
way, Like I'm not a good I

780
00:58:21.679 --> 00:58:25.559
talk a big game, but basically
you can view that as this annoying thing

781
00:58:27.079 --> 00:58:29.639
that I have to deal with,
or you can view it as you know,

782
00:58:29.639 --> 00:58:35.960
what This is like a step on
my journey to destroying the demon that

783
00:58:36.039 --> 00:58:39.079
is my pride, you know,
like to be too, like taking a

784
00:58:39.119 --> 00:58:45.840
sword and like you know and fighting
off the demons attempt me to whatever sins,

785
00:58:45.880 --> 00:58:50.440
you know, like humility. I
think Moses is the Black one of

786
00:58:50.480 --> 00:58:55.719
my favorite saints, his early early
saint. He basically was this barbarian warlord

787
00:58:57.119 --> 00:59:01.119
who was about to get captured by
the local you know, authorities, and

788
00:59:01.159 --> 00:59:06.760
he hides in a monastery and the
monks at first, well he kind of

789
00:59:06.800 --> 00:59:09.480
hides among them. They wont let
him in the monastery right away until he

790
00:59:09.599 --> 00:59:14.679
repents of his sins basically, and
so he's this huge dude, huge like

791
00:59:14.800 --> 00:59:19.719
Ethiopian guy, and I think he's
Ethiopian, and he basically converts and becomes

792
00:59:19.719 --> 00:59:23.280
a monk. And then another time
when the bandits break into the monastery,

793
00:59:23.320 --> 00:59:29.360
he's like the abbot and he you
know, he subdues them single handedly and

794
00:59:29.360 --> 00:59:31.079
then they all convert to you know, which is really funny. So he

795
00:59:31.119 --> 00:59:37.360
beats them all up and then they
become MUCKs. But he says that the

796
00:59:37.400 --> 00:59:38.800
devil, like, you think you
can fast, but the devil does not

797
00:59:38.880 --> 00:59:42.719
eat. You think you can stay
awake, but the devil does not sleep.

798
00:59:42.760 --> 00:59:45.679
But the only thing we can outbeat
the devil is in his humility,

799
00:59:45.760 --> 00:59:49.679
since he has none, you know. So humility, you know, do

800
00:59:49.719 --> 00:59:57.280
the mundane things that we find annoying
teaches humility and that's how we defeat ourselves,

801
00:59:57.480 --> 01:00:01.079
you know, and defeat the demonic
powers. And so if you view

802
01:00:01.119 --> 01:00:02.960
it like that, and again,
I'm not good at this. I don't

803
01:00:04.559 --> 01:00:07.920
I talk a big game, but
like you, that's how I think.

804
01:00:07.920 --> 01:00:09.719
That's kind of how re enchantment works. You know. On the on the

805
01:00:09.800 --> 01:00:12.559
day to day level, it's like
this thing, I have to change a

806
01:00:12.559 --> 01:00:15.400
dirty diaper, you know, and
poop is everywhere. It's just everywhere,

807
01:00:15.440 --> 01:00:16.480
you know, and now I have
it's on me. I got to clean

808
01:00:16.559 --> 01:00:21.760
up this. And instead of like
just moaning about that, and sometimes you

809
01:00:21.760 --> 01:00:22.559
need help, you know, sometimes
I have to call it my wife,

810
01:00:22.599 --> 01:00:25.320
like okay, hold hold the baby's
arms down so they don't get in the

811
01:00:25.320 --> 01:00:30.000
poop, you know, like that, but that those moments are like okay,

812
01:00:30.960 --> 01:00:36.239
I have to do this, and
she can't just sit in poop all

813
01:00:36.320 --> 01:00:37.159
day. You know, I have
to change a diaper and it has to

814
01:00:37.159 --> 01:00:38.800
be me. You know, there's
nobody else here. It's got to be

815
01:00:38.840 --> 01:00:44.199
me, and I can use this
opportunity to increase my own humility, you

816
01:00:44.239 --> 01:00:46.480
know, because it's not a fun
job to do, you know, but

817
01:00:46.559 --> 01:00:50.320
somebody's going to do it, and
it might as well be the mom or

818
01:00:50.360 --> 01:00:53.920
the dad, you know. So
it's that like the re enchantment allows us

819
01:00:53.960 --> 01:00:59.679
to take those moments and and like
kind of offer them back to God in

820
01:00:59.719 --> 01:01:06.199
a way that there's actually meaning behind
them. You know. It's a lot

821
01:01:06.199 --> 01:01:08.239
of people, I think, go
through life and they just think I'm a

822
01:01:08.320 --> 01:01:12.840
dad. So most of my references
are kids that having kids and like having

823
01:01:12.880 --> 01:01:20.280
a family is this kind of you
know, crippling burden. You can't travel

824
01:01:20.400 --> 01:01:22.159
very easily, you can't do whatever
you want, you know. But really

825
01:01:22.159 --> 01:01:27.800
it's like they're kind of the the
hammer kongs on the iron that forges,

826
01:01:28.280 --> 01:01:32.400
that forges, the sword or whatever
it is you're doing that you're just being

827
01:01:32.400 --> 01:01:36.760
shaped into something beautiful, you know, if you like, if you let

828
01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:37.480
it. And I think C.
S. Lewis kind of talks about that

829
01:01:37.519 --> 01:01:44.199
in the Problem of Pain too,
So yeah, now I'll be done talking.

830
01:01:45.199 --> 01:01:50.559
No, I think it's terribly important
that there is no mundane human activity,

831
01:01:50.920 --> 01:01:54.119
especially, you know, especially if
you do have kids, right,

832
01:01:54.159 --> 01:02:00.679
It's it's so easy to get lost
in the gross things that you have to

833
01:02:00.679 --> 01:02:04.960
do on a daily basis. I
mean, I've I've got twin two year

834
01:02:04.960 --> 01:02:10.039
olds, so I'm not the same
thing in directions. Yeah, yeah,

835
01:02:10.280 --> 01:02:15.480
you got it. You have a
little differently than me. But yeah,

836
01:02:15.719 --> 01:02:20.239
it's a if you do lose focus, lucy enchantment, then it becomes something

837
01:02:20.360 --> 01:02:27.079
like work, like grudgery, and
then you look back one day and you

838
01:02:27.159 --> 01:02:32.400
recognize that you let pass before you
the task you had to raise immortals.

839
01:02:32.559 --> 01:02:37.320
Were really thinking about it, Yeah, exactly, Like we're raising little immortals,

840
01:02:37.400 --> 01:02:39.599
you know, like that's that's a
crazy thing to think about, you

841
01:02:39.599 --> 01:02:43.320
know, and like we're like responsible
for their souls, like where they end

842
01:02:43.400 --> 01:02:45.239
up, or at least to a
degree. You know, obviously when they're

843
01:02:45.239 --> 01:02:47.960
a dollars, they make their own
bad choices, but hopefully they don't,

844
01:02:49.000 --> 01:02:52.800
you know, and there's a level
of trust there too. But yeah,

845
01:02:52.800 --> 01:02:59.360
it's like we're we're raising we're raising
these like immortal creatures that can't do anything

846
01:02:59.400 --> 01:03:06.360
for themselves. Yeah yeah, I
mean, how can we possibly see that

847
01:03:06.400 --> 01:03:08.920
as a mundane thing? We have
to do. You know, it's this

848
01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:17.280
glorious purpose that we've been given that
we have to be a best terribly arrogant

849
01:03:17.320 --> 01:03:23.639
to ignore. And so it should
lead us to be crushed down and then

850
01:03:23.679 --> 01:03:28.639
to rise up with the call the
fairy queen to take our proper place,

851
01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:32.760
you know. And so with Smith, he's not elevated to kingship, you

852
01:03:32.760 --> 01:03:37.480
know, he's basically elevated to a
servant. He was like almost nothing before

853
01:03:37.519 --> 01:03:40.519
and then he was elevated to a
servant. And and so we have to

854
01:03:40.559 --> 01:03:45.559
have this in mind. Like you
know, we are sons and daughters of

855
01:03:45.559 --> 01:03:47.199
God, right, that is a
thing that we are. But we're not

856
01:03:47.440 --> 01:03:52.119
like the most important person in the
world in the universe, you know,

857
01:03:52.239 --> 01:03:57.119
that is that is Christ. And
we have our place, you know,

858
01:03:57.199 --> 01:03:59.360
we have our place in the tapestry. You know, we have our place

859
01:03:59.400 --> 01:04:02.840
in the story. But we're not
the main character. But we we do

860
01:04:02.880 --> 01:04:06.280
cooperate if we try to cooperate with
what God wants us to do, you

861
01:04:06.280 --> 01:04:10.440
know. But we're basically servance,
you know. I mean, we are

862
01:04:10.599 --> 01:04:13.000
like in a way, you know, we are sons and daughters, but

863
01:04:13.039 --> 01:04:16.679
we we're like we're adopted, but
we're We're not the centers of the universe,

864
01:04:16.760 --> 01:04:19.559
so we have a role to play. And there's some humility in that,

865
01:04:19.639 --> 01:04:21.840
like I'm not going to be you
know, bel prize winning, you

866
01:04:21.880 --> 01:04:26.760
know, physicists and hearing or the
doctor hearing all these diseases. Now I'm

867
01:04:26.800 --> 01:04:30.480
just the guy who likes insects and
fairy stories and has four kids, and

868
01:04:30.480 --> 01:04:33.440
and I'm pretty small in the grand
scheme of things. In fact, then

869
01:04:33.639 --> 01:04:38.480
it's like most people will forget them
here when I'm gone, you know.

870
01:04:39.000 --> 01:04:42.800
So it's like, but knowing that
God does not forget, and you have

871
01:04:42.840 --> 01:04:45.880
a place, you have a purpose, you have, you have a task

872
01:04:45.039 --> 01:04:48.360
before you a quest. You know, you have an adventure. There's an

873
01:04:48.360 --> 01:04:54.920
adventure while waiting. You knowing that
is a is a great consolation. You

874
01:04:54.960 --> 01:04:59.519
know that everything happens for a reason, nothing is wasted, and everything is

875
01:04:59.519 --> 01:05:02.719
a purpose. So and I think
again that's what fairy stories help us to

876
01:05:02.800 --> 01:05:06.320
realize. It's like they're like with
because in the Habit, you know,

877
01:05:06.360 --> 01:05:12.000
with Bilbo, like I think at
the end, Gandalf says like there are

878
01:05:12.119 --> 01:05:14.519
the world is very big and you
are very small, and but you have

879
01:05:14.559 --> 01:05:17.679
a role to play or something like
that. You know, so, yeah,

880
01:05:18.000 --> 01:05:24.079
just these stories can help. It's
something that's really just not what modern

881
01:05:24.119 --> 01:05:27.679
people want to hear, like all
this type of kings and queens and you

882
01:05:27.719 --> 01:05:30.039
know, servants, and you know, it's all very foreign to most people,

883
01:05:30.199 --> 01:05:34.239
you know, but that's kind of
how reality lays itself out. So

884
01:05:35.480 --> 01:05:40.800
these help us kind of re regain
that view, right that be gaining a

885
01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:45.639
proper sense of hierarchy is actually essential
to having a place in the world.

886
01:05:45.239 --> 01:05:50.159
Right. I think we covered a
lot of what I considered be useful material

887
01:05:50.199 --> 01:05:53.280
here. I mean, do you
have any other thoughts before we wrap it

888
01:05:53.360 --> 01:05:59.440
up? Well, I think it's
interesting I had mentioned that I don't think

889
01:05:59.679 --> 01:06:03.159
that the King and Queen are allegories
of Christ and our Lady. I don't

890
01:06:03.159 --> 01:06:10.920
think they are. I think primarily
because of how the elf king Elf interacts

891
01:06:10.920 --> 01:06:14.679
with Noakes. By the end of
his life, so Noakes is he's fat,

892
01:06:14.920 --> 01:06:16.599
doesn't do much anymore, but he's
still obsessed with like what happened to

893
01:06:16.599 --> 01:06:19.320
the star or the star go?
You know, it had to be something

894
01:06:19.360 --> 01:06:23.679
happened to it. And Alf who
was his apprentice, you know, for

895
01:06:23.719 --> 01:06:28.920
many years he appears to him and
all of his glory of the Elf King

896
01:06:28.960 --> 01:06:31.599
and calls him fat and stupid and
you know, proud and like everything.

897
01:06:31.639 --> 01:06:38.000
I did everything and you did nothing, really, and Noakes freaks out and

898
01:06:38.039 --> 01:06:39.880
says, I'm just an old man, and Alf's like, yeah, you

899
01:06:39.920 --> 01:06:44.760
are. You're just an old man. So that's that's that's fine. I'm

900
01:06:44.760 --> 01:06:47.360
not gonna beat you over the head
anymore. And so but then like Noaks

901
01:06:47.400 --> 01:06:50.800
like he's like, well, I
want to lose weight, and Elf kind

902
01:06:50.800 --> 01:06:54.559
of grants him that request. He
loses all this weight, but he still

903
01:06:54.599 --> 01:06:59.159
maintains the fact that there's no fairies, nothing happened, you know, he

904
01:06:59.199 --> 01:07:03.519
doesn't heart isn't changed, right,
because I don't think Elf the fairy King

905
01:07:03.840 --> 01:07:09.400
is a christ figure in that way. I don't think he is there to

906
01:07:09.559 --> 01:07:13.440
change people's hearts who don't well I
guess Christ. He doesn't change peoples hearts

907
01:07:13.440 --> 01:07:15.440
who don't want to be changed.
Right if if, if Noakes doesn't want

908
01:07:15.480 --> 01:07:21.800
it, right, will be taken
away, right. Yeah, Like maybe

909
01:07:21.800 --> 01:07:27.679
my whole theory is is bunk.
But but that's to me, I'm like,

910
01:07:27.719 --> 01:07:31.400
that's too easy to allegorize the King
and Queen is you know, certainly

911
01:07:31.440 --> 01:07:36.639
there's elements of Christ in him,
the restorative nature of what he's set out

912
01:07:36.679 --> 01:07:43.679
to do, his providential sort of
hand, and in all of the things

913
01:07:43.679 --> 01:07:46.440
that happened in Wooten Major. So
there's there's definitely like elements of it,

914
01:07:46.480 --> 01:07:50.760
but I don't think it's supposed to
be like an Asla Christ sort of you

915
01:07:50.800 --> 01:07:55.880
know, one to what relationship.
So well, yeah, there's something of

916
01:07:55.920 --> 01:08:00.119
an echo. And I find interesting
that in that final encounter between alf and

917
01:08:00.119 --> 01:08:03.960
and Noakes, when Alf reveals his
glory and then goes away, Noakes frame

918
01:08:04.039 --> 01:08:08.519
data. So there's just a dream, there's something all away, you know.

919
01:08:08.559 --> 01:08:10.159
He's like, oh, it's just
something I ate, And so that's

920
01:08:10.159 --> 01:08:13.039
why he like doesn't eat anything anymore. He does he hardly. He's afraid

921
01:08:13.079 --> 01:08:15.720
he's gonna have bad dreams. Right. He takes the you know, there's

922
01:08:15.760 --> 01:08:19.279
more gravy than grave about you approach. Yeah. I was just thinking,

923
01:08:19.359 --> 01:08:24.560
yeah, yeah, Carol. Yeah, he basically just writes it all off.

924
01:08:24.640 --> 01:08:26.720
He's like, no, none that
actually happened. It was just a

925
01:08:26.840 --> 01:08:30.279
dream I had, and that the
the star must have dissolved or Elf must

926
01:08:30.279 --> 01:08:34.520
have taken it before they mixed the
batter, you know. So he still

927
01:08:34.520 --> 01:08:40.720
maintains all that stuff, even though
he just witnessed this like really crazy reveal,

928
01:08:41.000 --> 01:08:45.079
you know. Yeah, but Noakes
has not changed. He doesn't change.

929
01:08:45.159 --> 01:08:46.960
At the end, he looted the
weight and he lives longer and he's

930
01:08:46.960 --> 01:08:49.000
able to spend a time with his
family and going to walks again, so

931
01:08:49.039 --> 01:08:54.920
that's good, but he doesn't like
his heart doesn't changed, so right he

932
01:08:54.920 --> 01:08:57.840
he even rationalizes it as, of
course I lost weight, I didn't eat

933
01:08:57.840 --> 01:09:00.359
as much, right exactly. Yeah, one one loses weight when one doesn't

934
01:09:00.399 --> 01:09:06.199
eat, you know. Yeah,
it's really funny. Yeah, so that's

935
01:09:06.199 --> 01:09:09.439
pretty much it. I just wanted
to kind of touch on that a little

936
01:09:09.479 --> 01:09:13.159
bit too. And then the fact
that the one thing that Smith gets to

937
01:09:13.199 --> 01:09:15.159
take and pass down to his children
is not the star. It's the flower

938
01:09:15.199 --> 01:09:19.640
that the elf queen gives him,
which does not deteriorate, it does not

939
01:09:20.560 --> 01:09:25.319
wilt, and it's a bell and
also it smells to it too, So

940
01:09:25.800 --> 01:09:30.399
it's this like sort of almost like
I think Smith describes it as like a

941
01:09:30.439 --> 01:09:31.760
baby toy. You know, babies
can play with it. It won't break,

942
01:09:31.840 --> 01:09:35.119
you know, so you're not going
to break it. But it's passed

943
01:09:35.119 --> 01:09:40.399
down through the generations. But even
then, it's not completely there is because

944
01:09:40.840 --> 01:09:42.840
they keep it. He made a
little casket for it, and they can

945
01:09:42.880 --> 01:09:45.840
open it up, but it closes
when it wants to close. You don't.

946
01:09:45.880 --> 01:09:47.039
They don't get to, you know, close it on their own.

947
01:09:47.199 --> 01:09:51.359
It's kind of still out of their
control. They don't. Really, it's

948
01:09:51.399 --> 01:09:57.720
not something they have like complete dominion
over. So right, it's even fair

949
01:09:57.880 --> 01:10:00.199
that's own is still out of your
control. Yeah yeah, yeah, but

950
01:10:00.439 --> 01:10:02.800
that too was a gift. It
wasn't something he earned, you know.

951
01:10:03.920 --> 01:10:10.800
Authored I really like gene Wolf in
Book of the New Son, he says

952
01:10:10.800 --> 01:10:15.720
something like, if a gift is
deserved, then it would be called that's

953
01:10:15.760 --> 01:10:18.760
that's called a payment. You know, it's a gift is undeserved. That's

954
01:10:18.800 --> 01:10:23.000
why it's a gift and not a
payment. So yeah, yeah, that's

955
01:10:23.000 --> 01:10:26.600
all I have. Very good.
I think it's a good way to bend

956
01:10:26.640 --> 01:10:29.279
it off. And so I certainly
appreciate you coming on. I feel like

957
01:10:29.279 --> 01:10:30.600
it's a good talk. Yeah,
it was a lot of fun. Thank

958
01:10:30.640 --> 01:10:34.199
you. You know, anytime you
want me on again, i'd talk about

959
01:10:34.840 --> 01:10:39.199
anything Tolkien related. So I don't
don't talk Tolkien that much on my show.

960
01:10:39.279 --> 01:10:42.199
It's actually kind of I kind of
go away from Tolkien because there are

961
01:10:42.199 --> 01:10:46.199
so many shows like yours that do
a much better job talking about Tolkien and

962
01:10:46.239 --> 01:10:49.920
so, but I haven't talked about
Tolkien occasionally, so, but it's always

963
01:10:49.920 --> 01:10:54.239
fun to kind of dive back into, especially something as kind of obscure as

964
01:10:54.359 --> 01:10:57.680
Smith of Wooten Major. Yeah,
that's why I'm trying to stick to it,

965
01:10:57.720 --> 01:11:01.520
and I try to stay away from
Leschendarium for some reasons. But okay,

966
01:11:02.039 --> 01:11:04.920
well, good, we will do
it again sometime. That's good.

967
01:11:16.039 --> 01:11:18.840
Thank you for listening to Mythic Mind, And as a reminder, be sure

968
01:11:18.840 --> 01:11:23.000
to look up Aaron's podcast I might
believed in Fairies, and I also know

969
01:11:23.079 --> 01:11:27.359
that he's doing some interesting things with
Grimm's Fairy Tales on his Patreon. And

970
01:11:27.439 --> 01:11:30.399
as a reminder, if you are
interested in my summer studies, be sure

971
01:11:30.399 --> 01:11:32.560
to sign up for the Lewis course
this month if you're listening to it in

972
01:11:32.600 --> 01:11:36.760
November to get both for the discounted
price of one. And if you'd like

973
01:11:36.800 --> 01:11:41.720
to support my ongoing work, you
can join the Mythic Mindfellowship at patreon dot

974
01:11:41.760 --> 01:11:45.279
com slash Mythic Mind. Oh,
and next time we're going to be starting

975
01:11:45.319 --> 01:11:46.880
a short series, or at least
what I think will be a short series,

976
01:11:47.000 --> 01:11:50.880
on Tolkien's translation of Beowulf, and
so I'm not doing a rush job.

977
01:11:50.960 --> 01:11:55.399
It may be a few weeks before
you see the first episode roll out,

978
01:11:55.840 --> 01:11:59.000
but I do intend to get it
out in December. If you would

979
01:11:59.000 --> 01:12:01.359
like to join the Mythic Mind conversations, until then, be sure to join

980
01:12:01.439 --> 01:12:06.239
our Patreon, and until next time, I wish you many meaningful roads ahead.