This tale grew in the telling
                                                                      "The Lord of the Rings"
                                                 Foreword
 
I first became acquainted with the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien when I was 10. A friend at school recommended that I read "The Hobbit" and I did so. I found myself swept into a realm which I did not want to leave, and when I found that there was another "Hobbit" story with the mysterious and entrancing title of "The Lord of the Rings" I was off down to the public library to get a copy. I read "The Fellowship of the Ring" and was fascinated with it. For some inexplicable reason the tale seemed to have greater depth than "The Hobbit" and hinted of a depth, both in time and story, that was not present in that book. By the end of the chapter entitled "The Council of Elrond" I realised that "The Lord of the Rings" was something quite different, and from that moment the book fully entered my life and has remained there, frequently passive but from time to time very active indeed.

My father, I later discovered, had a similar fascination with the works of Charles Dickens and had belonged, in his youth, to the Dickens Society in Auckland. It was he who enabled me to fully engage my fascination with Middle-earth. As is so often the case with "series" book, the library did not have "The Two Towers" available once I had finished"The Fellowship of the Ring". "The Return of the King" was available and I borrowed it, cribbing from the synopsis what had gone before in Volume II. Thus I missed the marvellous Battle of Helms Deep, the fall of Saruman, the return of Gollum and the Passage through the Marshes and the entry to Mordor. When I decided that I wanted to re-read "The Lord of the Rings" a couple of years later, I was able to successfully prevail upon my father to give me the then princely sum of 4 guineas to purchase all three volumes, and I realised what I had missed. Thereafter, I read "The Lord of the Rings" each year.

I recall in the summer of 1965 seeing a paperback trilogy of "The Lord of the Rings" for sale in the University bookshop at Stanford University. "Tolkien-mania" had hit the United States, and swept the world. I found that when Tolkien fans gathered, a test of one's devotion to the text would be the ability to answer questions that sought more and more obscure knowledge of "The Lord of the Rings" as the evening wore on and the beer consumption increased. This ritual was to stand me in good stead later.

In 1977 "The Silmarillion" was released. This was a significant event for me, although for many it was a disappointment. Those who were seeking a novel were confronted with a narrative mythology that was not easy for many readers. Yet "The Silmarillion" provided an essential foundation for an understanding of Tolkien's work, and more importantly gave life to the depth that had pervaded "The Lord of the Rings".

In 1980 I decided to try my hand at the TV quiz show, "Mastermind". The format was straightforward. There were two rounds for each contestant.  Each contestant nominated a specialist subject and was required to answer as many questions as possible within two minutes. The contestant could "pass" on questions to which the answer was not known. A wrong answer meant that time was consumed while the quizmaster gave the correct one. The second round comprised two minutes of general knowledge questions. This was the leveller. the winner from the elimination rounds would proceed to the semi-finals. The two top scorers from the semi-finals went on to the finals. One extra wrinkle was that if one hit the semi-final, one had to change specialist subjects but could revert to the original subject in the finals. My first specialist subject was "The Lord of the Rings" and my second was the Third Crusade to the Middle East (1189-1191). The quizmaster was an extraordinarily bright TV and radio announcer named Peter Sinclair who is still on radio and who writes a computer column for the New Zealand Herald. Here are the questions from the elimination and the final.

I won the New Zealand competition in 1980 and as a result won a trip to London. In addition I was to represent New Zealand at the International Mastermind competition in Sydney, Australia in 1981. Again I competed, with "The Lord of the Rings" as a specialist subject. There were four contestant, so it was a "sudden death" affair, and once again I was successful.

I subsequently travelled to London with my wife, and had the great pleasure of meeting Rayner Unwin and spending some time over lunch with him. It was an honout to meet the man for whom Tolkien was a protege, and to have him share his reminiscenes with me. I had had a niggling thought that I might like to write something about the Ring and mentioned this to Mr. Unwin and I was even more surprised to be asked to send anything I wrote to him. That I did and ultimately "The Song of Middle-earth - J.R.R.Tolkien's Themes, Symbols and Myths"  was published in 1985. It was a little more than the piece I had originally wanted to write on The Ring. I became immersed in the mythology and found that "The Silmarillion" became the principle work for analysis. The article on the Ring followed in 1993.

Since then, I have not re-opened "The Lord of the Rings". I have followed with interest "The History of Middle-earth" series, the first volume of which (The Book of Lost Tales 1)came out just as I had finished the manuscript for "The Song" and references to which I was able, somewhat hastily, to include in the publication.

J.R.R. Tolkien has provided me with enjoyment, wonder, fascination, fame, a completed book and a corpus of work which is fascinating in its entirity. "Tales from the Perilous Realm", his wonderful translations of "Finn and Hengest" and "Gawain and the Green Knight", his essays, especially "The Monster and the Critics", and his Letters (edited by Humphrey Carpenter) have provided me with great joy and stimulation.

I still have the trilogy my father funded in 1960. Perhaps it is time for another journey.................