Michael Drout is discussing the dating of "Beowulf" on his blog. His first post explains the background of current research that has yet to resolve the dating of the poem to everyone's satisfaction.

Ancient Germanic literature always fascinated me for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that the same stories could be found in more than one regional legend or literary tradition. Until the 7th to 8th centuries CE, people in Scandinavia, west Europe, the British Isles, and central Europe all spoke the same or very similar languages.

The northern dialects among the Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and a few other nearby peoples were so closely tied together that you could literally travel from one end of Europe to the other without having to learn another language.

These ancient peoples shared a common folklore and very similar religions (their common gods included Odin, Thor, Freyr, Freya, Tyr, and Loki among others); their kings and earls/jarls lived in large halls; warriors sought out the greatest leaders of their day to gain glory, honor, and wealth; and tribes were constantly warring with their neighbors.

"Beowulf" reflects that ancient world, though scholars debate when exactly it was written. Ancient writers including Geoffrey of Tours (History of the Franks), Procopius (The Secret History), and Jordanes (The Origin and Deeds of the Goths) wrote about events and people mentioned in "Beowulf", most notably Hygelac (Geoffrey's Danish king Chlochilaich) and Hrothulf (Roduulf).

Hrothulf interests me because in most traditions he is said to have betrayed his family and finally was slain by his cousin, Hereward. But the ancient writer Cassiodorus (and Jordanes, whom some scholars feel was strongly influenced by Cassiodorus) speaks of a Roduulf (supposed King of the Heruli) who fled to the court of Theodoric the Great (King of the Ostrogoths from 488 to 526 and King of Italy from 493 until his death).

Odoacer was a half-Sciri, half-Hun chieftain who seized control over Italy at the head of an army of Germanic mercenaries, many of whom were Heruli. The Roduulf-Heruli connection seems odd to me but I'm not a linguist (so if you haven't figure it out by now, this is all just fun and speculation). In any event, some scholars speculate that Roduulf may have fled Scandinavia because of political difficulties, whereas some scholars simply say that the prospect of living in sunny Italy under Theodoric was more appealing to him than lording over a mead-hall in Denmark.

Hrothulf was not a popular fellow, as was usually pitched in the villain's role in many stories. In modern scholarship he is treated as a sort of ethnographic hot potato -- no one really wants to place him with any particular tribe or region, but his presence at Theodoric's court is somehow accepted.

It would be easy to speculate (and perhaps impossible to prove) that Hrothulf/Roduulf lived in the late 5th century, participated in events described in "Beowulf" and other works, seized the Danish throne, was driven from it, and subsequently became a mercenary captain leading a company or large contingent of Heruls and other Germanic warriors, and found himself caught up in late Roman politics. If he survived Theodoric's overthrow of Odoacer, what would he have done next?

A man who betrays his own kin might, in fact, switch sides in a crucial struggle for power on the fringe of the dying Roman sphere. So perhaps Roduulf won himself a reprieve by serving Theodoric loyally, unable to return to the north because of his disgrace, which was immortalized in numerous stories. But his own tenure in Italy may have been accurately recorded only a few generations later.

And what does all that have to do with the dating of "Beowulf"? Well, it's interesting to note that large mead-halls like Heorot were not very common in the 5th and 6th centuries but there is evidence that at least a few existed.

That is, archaeology and history have confirmed a mixture of events and people associated with "Beowulf" sufficiently that a lot of folks have been wondering for many years just how much of "Beowulf" may actually be based on real history. Hygelac's raid against the Frisians/Franks occurred in 515 CE, which is about 22 years after Theodoric overthrew Odoacer. That's a little inconvenient for our supposed identification of Procopius' and Jordanes' Roduulf with Beowulf's kinsman Hrothulf.

Nonetheless, the fact that 6th century writers were interested enough in the same family and events mentioned in "Beowulf" to include references to them in their works implies that that family and those events impressed a lot of people. Furthermore, the commemorative tales like "Beowulf" and "Hrolf's Saga" imply that these stories were worthy of embellishment and professional presentation.

Cultures don't remember idle events. They do tend to remember significant events, but they don't necessarily remember those events correctly. For example, most people would tell you today that Coca-Cola was originally formulated with cocaine, and they would point to numerous Web sites and books that claim it was so. But none of these retroformulating sources of misinformation actually had access to the original formula.

In a landmark legal decision, the United States Government was forced to concede that Coca Cola did not contain cocaine. But the product was always formulated with an extract from coca leaves (and the formula has been altered more than once), the processing of which (introduced in the 1920s) ensures that insufficient traces of natural cocaine are found in the final product.

Nonetheless, most people today are convinced that Coca Cola once contained cocaine. You'll never get them to change their minds. The power of mythology is very strong even in today's highly educated western society where, supposedly, we are taught to question every statement and assumption.

Linguists seek to use the language of "Beowulf" to determine when the poem was originally written. The problem that all researchers concede stands in the way of success for all arguments is that the oldest surviving manuscript was written sometime between the years 950 and 1025 CE. That is nowhere near the time when Beowulf is believed to have lived.

One must ask why anyone would compose a heroic paganistic poem for a hero who supposedly lived 500 years previously in a foreign land -- especially a land that had recently sent invaders and conquerors. Well, there are hypothetical explanations to justify such a composition, but they cannot be proven or disproven to everyone's satisfaction either.

Nonetheless, there are emphatic points in "Beowulf" that seem to call for an early composition date to the poem. The significance of Heorot is one of those points because it is esteemed above the halls of other northern chieftains. By the year 950, wooden halls would have seemed quaint and ridiculously vulnerable. The Saxons of England and their Danish cousins had become masters of stone fortifications.

The ease with which heroes and lords travel across the landscape in Beowulf's world is also strikingly different from the interactions of kings and princes in the 10th century. Or, to put it another way, people would wonder about 30 men putting out to sea to seek adventure in a foreign land. After centuries of raids and invasions, the kings of Denmark and Angle-land were rather suspicious of boat-loads of armed warriors.

The contrast between Beowulf's world and the world of the Beowulf manuscript has sometimes been explained by the supposition that the "Beowulf" poet was looking back to a more ancient, rustic time. But 500 years seems awfully long in a culture that no longer remembered the Caesars and the glories of Rome. Was "Beowulf" truly more memorable than the Roman conquest of Britain?

On the other hand, the English writer Bede (who lived in the late 6th and early 7th centuries himself) doesn't mention "Beowulf". Bede probably had a significant impact on Tolkien's literature. His Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum could read like Tolkien's appendices to The Lord of the Rings. Anyone who has read The History of Middle-earth series should understand the obvious connection between Bede and Tolkien through their works titled "On the Reckoning of Time".

Bede worked with a very large library of books composed in Greek, Latin, Old English, and other languages. His own works were based on extensive research -- probably the best research that people of his time were capable of producing.

Bede's prolific writing influenced western ecclesiastical education and thought for centuries. Monks in central Europe studied Bede carefully. He not only wrote about theology, history, and science, but also about grammar and idiom. Does Bede's literary catalogue of topics sound familiar?

Bede was a man of immense curiosity with a passion for writing so intense he is said to have been writing from his death-bed, working on a translation of The Gospel According to John from Latin to Old English. His linguistic endeavors foreshadowed in many ways Tolkien's own achievements.

So one must ask, if Bede had access to the most important literature of western Europe, why did he not mention "Beowulf", unless it wasn't written down until after his death? It's an interesting question and the implications it raises are supported by the fact that English and Continental Saxon scholars exchanged literature for centuries.

That is, it seems unlikely that a pagan Saxon literature could have co-existed with the Christian Saxon literature in England. Pagan Anglo-Saxons were probably literate to some extent but they did not create any great libraries of literature (at least, history doesn't record the destruction of such libraries).

"Beowulf" is, like "The Iliad", a teaching poem -- it teaches the audience about its heroic heritage. It teaches the audience about virtues and values. It preserves a memory of deeds and times from a distant past.

Many voices ask if a poetic tradition could survive through 500 years before being written down. Perhaps it's more pertinent to ask how long "knowledge" of events can survive in a poetic tradition before it has to be written down. Homer lived about 400 years after the Trojan War. We don't know how many of his heroes and events were modelled on real men and deeds, but his legacy has been partially vindicated by archaeology.

Homer was vindicated just as the legacy of "Beowulf" has been partially vindicated by archaeology and literature. We can compare "Beowulf" to other poems and literature, and we can use archaeology to build a picture of a probable time and place that might have inspired the events of the poem.

But we cannot pin a date on the poetic work's composition. In fact, to compicate matters further, some scholars speak of two "Beowulf" poems -- an earlier pagan version and a later Christianized version. But even this hypothesis has been questioned.

It seems plausible to me that a northern Germanic poetic tradition could have arisen, evolved, and survived among the closely related peoples of Northumbria, East Anglia, Denmark (the former Angeln), and other parts of the Scandinavian world, even through the centuries of the great phonetic shift.

The last expression of that northern tradition could have been a formally composed work about "Beowulf". People could have asked who Chlochilaich and Roduulf were. Ancient minds with knowledge of forbidden Germanic lore could have recalled stories from their childhood.

Or maybe Bede just didn't care for the poem, so he and other like-minded scholars simply ignored it. Perhaps there was a fading alternate literary tradition that took root in Angle-land but never really spread back to the continent because it was not eccesiastical enough. It could be that a humble Christian poet's imagination was inspired sometime in the 800s, perhaps by tales of Viking raids, to rewrite the old story so that it became more acceptable to a contemporary English audience that -- despite raids and wars with Scandinavians -- cherished its ancient connection to the people in Denmark.

Bilbo and Frodo's birthday has already passed. In our calendar it usually falls around September 13 or September 14. Most people, however, celebrate September 22 as The Birthday, completely forgetting that the Shire Calendar is not the same as ours.

Even The American Tolkien Society perpetuates the mixup and by now it's far too late to correct the error. We'll have to accept that by the time most Tolkien fans lift a glass of wine or soda to cheer Bilbo and Frodo, the magic day will have passed by more than a week.

Tolkien Week is defined to be that calendaric week (running from Sunday through Saturday) in which September 22 falls. That happens to be this week. The American Tolkien Society suggests that:

The most popular method of observing Tolkien Week is the library, bookstore or school display. Most libraries have bulletin boards or cases, and some have enclosed display tables and other facilities up to and including display windows of considerable size. Many librarians among our members and friends create displays; other members contact their libraries and assist in preparing displays.

Well, I'm all for an occasional visit to a library but I have Web sites devoted to -- well, to Tolkien, science fiction and fantasy, and even huckleberry products (which, personally, I feel Hobbits would love). In any event, I can say something about Tolkien Week and Hobbit Day on these Web sites, and by golly I am!

I posted an announcement on Xenite.Org but I've also shared the news at SF-Fandom's Tolkien Forum and the Endor discussion group (which used to be the Middle-earth mailing list).

It seems rather silly for me to have to find a school or library this late in the year that will help me celebrate Tolkien Week. Okay, maybe I should have planned ahead but I've been a little busy. The thing is, if you want to do something special to remember Tolkien and his Hobbits (this year marks the 70th anniversary of The Hobbit), then get together with some friends this Saturday and toast Tolkien. Do a reading.

But put something on your Web site, too. Or stop by the Tolkien Forum on SF-Fandom and say hello to your fellow Tolkien fans. You can still prepare a genuine hobbit feast (don't forget the huckleberries!) if you enjoy cooking. Or go find an English pub and have an ale, eat Shepherd's Pie, etc.

The point is, it's a special week for Tolkien fans. Remember the Shire!

Tolkienology is an odd word that people really don't know what to do with. It's a bit like a preposition. Can you end a sentence with a preposition, like "with"? Sir Winston Churchill reportedly once said, when a woman advised him that it was improper to end a sentence with a preposition, "Madam, nonsense such as that up with which I shall not put."

He said so many apt things like that. Only this morning I saw another Churchill quote on an electronic billboard: "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Truth ever finds itself on the defense and in rebuttal. Rarely does truth leap out ahead of lies and fabircations.

And I use the word "fabrication" in the sense of an artificiality, a pseudoism such as an ill-informed attempt to explain something. If you search for "tolkienology" on the Web, for example, you won't find any generally accepted definitions. Someone suggested it has to do with the study of Middle-earth as if it's a real world.

I don't actually do that, but I can see how many people would think that is what I do. It's not that I strive to see Middle-earth as a real world. Rather, I strive to see the Middle-earth that J.R.R. Tolkien imagined. I'll never see his vision but I can pare away those things that provably are not his vision.

Other people do want to study Middle-earth as if it's a real world but I don't see any value in such study. The reason I wrote so many essays that explored Tolkien's histories and cultures was that I wanted to understand them. I wanted to understand the stories better. They are just stories, reflecting one man's natural opinion of how the stories should be told. But they are such fasinating stories.

Had anyone asked me what I think "Tolkienology" should mean I believe I would have always said, "The study of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and their influences". That would be a suitably ambiguous Michael Martinez answer. In fact, I think the old Professor would appreciate the subtlety of such an answer.

For what could I possibly mean by "their influences"? Many people, I think, would leap to the wrong conclusion and suggest works like Old English poems, Norse sagas, Greek literature, Medieval literature, etc. Those are sources for Tolkien's works, no doubt about that. But though the sources may have influenced the works the sources are not themselves influences.

Rather, "their influences" must, I think, refer to the influences that Tolkien's works have had. They influence many things: literatary theory, cinematic theory, economic theory, social theory. They influence communities, disparate groups, individuals, and the educational world. Tolkien's works influence the media, other authors, and even industry.

J.R.R. Tolkien's influence is much broader, much deeper than can be measured in today's quantifications. We are stumbling toward a raw grasp of the momentity of Tolkien's reach across human experience. His ideas were not trivial for they have inspired legions of thinkers and doers to take action in more directions than I could ever hope to broadly generalize.

Liars, thieves, and slovenly fools have toiled in Tolkien's shadow. Great thinkers, giants of industry, and world leaders have acknowledged him in ways that our super-wealthy elite can only dream of. Old and young, near and far, people have discovered Tolkien's vision and looked up to glimpse Fairie from afar. A few, very few, have even seen the shadow of Mount Mindolluin overlooking the Bay of Eldamar.

Did I get my geography mixed up? Only a true Tolkienologist would know for sure. But Tolkienology is not simply about knowing; it is also about making, doing, and understanding.

It is the understanding that is the hardest, most challenging level of Tolkienology. Like a false prophet or false teacher, pseudo-understanding cries out with many voices: "Here is the way! It is over here!" But how can one fully understand the vision of a man who is no longer around to articulate that vision?

We have his words and no more than his words. His voice has fallen silent and we who wish to understand him must accept that he spoke in the idiom of a different generation, with the teachings and experiences of his own life's path, and there are relatively few left now who can remember him or know what he meant by what he said.

Tolkienology will soon begin to slumber and perhaps wrap itself in a coccoon, for the last of Tolkien's works has been published and his voice is now completely silent. There are no new words to resonate through our hearts. We can only hope that there will be a spring ahead to summon forth a beautiful creature from that coccoon of sleep.

For if we cannot understand Tolkien himself, or his vision, so fully, we can still be venturous enough to study the effect his works have on our lives. We can become true Tolkienologists by never looking back, only looking forward. For there is another hill or mountain awaiting our footsteps as we stroll down that merry, winding road he paved for us.

He is gone but will always be with us in our hearts and our thoughts. His works are a vial we hold up in the night. His influences are waves that ripple across the dividing seas, assuring us that we retain a connection to his vision.

Namarie! Maybe (even) thou shall find Vainor!

While looking for interesting blogs that discuss Tolkien (mainly to share a few new posts at The Tolkien and Inklings Forum on SF-Fandom, I came across a couple of blogs that deserve mention here.

STELZNER ONLINE (Jeremy Stelzner) has a brief post titled "The Pearl in GT Quarter One" and Mr. Stelzner mentions using The Hobbit as a supplemental text.

Mr. Vanden Bergh has handed out reading assignments for September 17-21 and it looks like the class is going through The Hobbit.

Here is hoping the students enjoy the books. Teachers, share your class reading projects on the Web and I'll try to find as many as possible.

J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit through George Allen & Unwin on September 10, 1937. We Hobbit fans more-or-less neglected to note the passing of another anniversary.

Well, I neglected to note the passing.

September 10 in our calendar almost falls in line with September 25 in the Shire's calendar, so we could almost celebrate Bilbo and Frodo's birthday along with the anniversary of the book's publication.

Hobbit fandom is largely quiet these days as people wait to find out if Peter Jackson will indeed bring "The Hobbit" to the screen. In the meantime, should negotations with Jackson fail, don't be surprised to hear rumors of another negotiation for the rights to "The Lord of the Rings". Soon the fetters of the 10-year contractual moratorium will fall away.

And then what?

History teaches us that movie franchises tend to wait 20 years or more before being repackaged, although "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" doesn't seem to run low on pod people and cheap special effects. Who knows? Maybe now someone is working hard on a script that is more faithful to Tolkien than Jackson's was (which in some ways would be hard to do, and in other ways would be easy to do).

Tolkien's story was not well-suited to the Big Screen even in his own mind, but I've always wondered how people know that for sure. I mean, the first two Harry Potter books were faithfully adapted to the screen and those movies looked pretty good. In fact, I often question the validity of archaeology's insistence that every flat table-like structure with a few terra cotta dolls around it must have been some sort of altar.

If you were to bury many American homes today for 1,000 years and then dig them up, what would you make of the porcelain statues you'd find? Do we worship Precious Moments goddesses?

The assumption that a faithful adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" cannot be made is based on arbitrary cinematic limits. Studios don't often commit to film trilogies. They certainly don't commit to anything longer than a trilogy. When people first heard Jackson might get to do the LoTR movies, many purists and semi-purists insisted that no fewer than six movies would work.

George Lucas has proven that the six-movie concept is doable, and next time around we should not have to endure a 16-year hiatus while the producer waits for technology to catch up to his imagination. There is no reason for why someone cannot start planning a six-film series today. We're already five movies into the 7-film Harry Potter franchise, as I recall.

But perhaps I'm only dreaming.

Although Tolkien has been mistaken for the father of modern fantasy many times (he neither revolutionized literary fantasy nor founded the genre we know by many names such as "adventure fantasy", "high fantasy", "epic fantasy", "heroic fantasy", etc.), he is in a way the father of the modern fantasy franchise. Had it not been for Tolkien, would Lucas have attempted "Star Wars"? Of course, Lucas had other inspirations.

But where we stand today is pivotal with respect to Tolkien cinemology. We could compromise and settle for a "Hobbit" movie or we could dig in and demand that someone improve upon success. For all their faults, innovations, and triumphs, Peter's movies left us both wanting more and wanting less. We know now that audiences will pay to see 6 movies. There is no longer a business reason to block a large film franchise. But the Saul Zaentz Company needs to decide where it wants to take the property.

That's really what it comes down to. A lot of people would argue that the games and collectibles inspired by the Jackson adaptation have not been played out. It could be they have another 5-7 years of life. In which case rolling out a new adaptation might seem premature.

And some of the deficiencies of the Jackson films were not Peter's fault. He was legally constrained NOT to use most of the available Tolkien material. What could Middle-earth have looked like had Peter been able to use more and invent less? His own imagination would have made the films unique but Peter would certainly have had many more options to choose from.

On the other hand it seems as though Christopher Tolkien's heart has been hardened even more against the idea of enabling yet more film adaptations. An authorized film adapation could certainly go a long way toward reconciling purists with the whole idea of bring Middle-earth to the big screen but Christopher Tolkien is the most stringent purist of all. I just don't see him ever approving of the idea.

And one must then wonder where that leaves The Hobbit. Such measures as could be taken to protect it from slipping into the public domain have been taken, and based on current copyright law we cannot hope to see The Hobbit reach public hands for many decades. The book will not only be venerable but will also be ancient by the time its text can be legally distributed without paying royalties to Tolkien's heirs.

The weight of intellectual property rights becomes a heavy burden upon society, which once was free to adapt old but not ancient works willfully and with zest. Now we live in a holding pattern, occasionally negotiating a usually dismal foray into some author's world. The lack of economic incentive for developing fictional worlds in cinema and other formats is now impeding our creativity.

The Hobbit has thus become symbolic of the very thing Tolkien resented: the machine, the repression of individuality and freedom of expression. Everything is controlled because of the commercial value of Tolkien's literary creation. Everything is Sauronized in the name of purism. Somewhere along the way, I think we picked up the wrong ring and began wearing it all too often.

Even so, with all such regret as this writer feels, happy birthday Hobbit. It has been great having you in my life. Here is to the next 70 years.