Perceptible but indescribable

[Chrysophylax Dives]

The definition of a fairy-story—what it is, or what it should be—does not, then, depend on any definition or historical account of elf or fairy, but upon the nature of Faërie: the Perilous Realm itself, and the air that blows in that country. I will not attempt to define that, nor to describe it directly. It cannot be done. Faërie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible.

I posted this quote from 'On Fairy-stories' (1947) on the Tolkien Reading Day thread and commented on the fact that I cannot fathom its meaning. So I thought I'd make a new thread dedicated to this quote to see if anyone can shed light on it.

[VelvetineZone]

I like it. It just feels like it's saying that some stories are full of elements which make them feel very faerie, could be the settings, characters, content, or just a general sense of wild faerie magic.

[Fuin Elda]

So my take on what he is meaning is that if one limits faerie to a singular description you horrifically limit the creativity that you can use in creating your fairies.

Instead of limiting elves or fairy to say little folk or brownies or whatever local fairy lore there was in England (for there was an awful lot of it with the fair folk and the hag stones and all of that) Tolkien I think found it wiser to cut lose from a historical account of a fairy or elf so that he could create his own sort of elves. His own fairy as it were which would mean his own fair folk would have their own definitions and qualities which while he can describe his own Perilous realm and be able to define his idea of fairy stories based on his fair folk and their realm because that is all he can define and even then I think he leaves a lot to interpretation simply because it gives more credence to them being fair folk because there is mystery to them. (Balrogs for example... Tom Bombadil)

He also doesn't attempt to say this is the ONLY way elves can be described I think he wanted to see more people creating their own worlds similar to how he had and because of the nature of fairy both historical lore wise and fantasy writing wise to try to shoe horn something that is by it's very nature otherworldly would do writers and those that believe in the magickal side of life a disservice by trying to come up with hard fast descriptions and definitions.

(Did you miss me @Chrysophylax Dives ? I've taken off the ring and reappeared for a bit at least! Also it's 3 am... and I am tired so I apologize if this is quite cyclical in thinking and makes no sense)

[Melahny_oftheWoods]

I like this quote a lot. You kind of get a feeling for what Faerie is, what that realm entails. But you can't describe or define it because it is a large branch. It's like trying to define a whole genre. There fairy stories are varied. There are epic tales, moral stories, children's tales "bedtime stories," grand myths like what Tolkien created, laying the groundwork for the modern fantasy genre. Every fairy story has a different version of things; what are fairies, dwarves, elves?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Interesting responses. None of you pick up on the directly, which is the hook by which I attempt a way in.

The definition of a fairy-story—what it is, or what it should be—does not, then, depend on any definition or historical account of elf or fairy, but upon the nature of Faërie: the Perilous Realm itself, and the air that blows in that country. I will not attempt to define that, nor to describe it directly. It cannot be done. Faërie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible.

Faërie cannot be caught in a net of words; cannot be defined, nor described directly. Seemingly, it could be described indirectly.

What is an indirect description? I am not really sure. This is where I get stuck. But I tend to think it might be metaphor. So a fairy-story is one where metaphors are serving for descriptions, and no doubt are confused by an audience for direct = literal description. Enchantment is then the state of taking a metaphor literally.

[VelvetineZone]

I would have thought an indirect description is where you're generally creating a vibe of faerie, not necessarily explicitly labelling and describing everything as faerie.

So sometimes a story might be set in a faerie land and full of elves and faeries, but wouldn't an indirect faerie story be something that could be set in a non explicitly faerie setting, without characters coded as faerie beings, etc, and yet have a feel about the writing and characters and setting which is distinctly faerie.

[VelvetineZone]

One of my favourite authors, Elizabeth Goudge, is a bit like that. There's often a sort of faerie vibe to her writing, even though not necessarily set in enchanted other realms, the books are set in the Wells area, or Devon, or valleys full of legends, etc, and there's a whimsy and magic that flows in and out of them, and yet the settings are not necessarily specifically coded as faerielands full of fae and elves.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Here is the Hobbits' journey from Old Man Willow by the River, following the voice of Tom Bombadil, which has just gone silent, out of the Old Forest and to his house. For me, all the Bombadil material illustratates what Tolkien is talking about, and it seems to fit what you are saying. Does this count for you as 'indirect description' of Faërie?

Almost at once the sun seemed to sink into the trees behind them. They thought of the slanting light of evening glittering on the Brandywine River, and the windows of Bucklebury beginning to gleam with hundreds of lights. Great shadows fell across them; trunks and branches of trees hung dark and threatening over the path. White mists began to rise and curl on the surface of the river and stray about the roots of the trees upon its borders. Out of the very ground at their feet a shadowy steam arose and mingled with the swiftly falling dusk.

It became difficult to follow the path, and they were very tired. Their legs seemed leaden. Strange furtive noises ran among the bushes and reeds on either side of them; and if they looked up to the pale sky, they caught sight of queer gnarled and knobbly faces that gloomed dark against the twilight, and leered down at them from the high bank and the edges of the wood. They began to feel that all this country was unreal, and that they were stumbling through an ominous dream that led to no awakening.

[Priya]

Hello Chrysophylax Dives

“Faërie is a perilous land, …”, 
– The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, On Fairy-stories – pg. 109, HarperCollins, 1983   

“… a … land, full of wonder …”, – The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, On Fairy-stories – pg. 109, HarperCollins, 1983   (my underlined emphasis)


And I think Tolkien’s use of ‘wonder’ is key. As soon as one crosses over into that realm* the ‘wonder’ becomes perceptible. But because it’s a wholly different world to our primary one - the atmosphere and wonders within cannot be believably or precisely described by anyone who has visited and ventured deep inside. Yet even after a personal absorption, a retelling to anyone else upon return will fall expressively short.

I think the concept is a bit like ‘heaven’. Faërie is an altogether different place from what we know - and what it’s like, Tolkien is saying - cannot be adequately described in words and that is ‘directly’, or for that matter: ‘indirectly’.

I have a feeling Tolkien tried later tried in life to give us a glimpse of ‘his’ Faërie through Smith of Wootton Major. Also my gut tells me that a late Bombadil poem: Once Upon a Time, is set in Faërie. Have you read it?


* I’m not debating here or offering to rule on whether Faërie is imaginary or real.

[VelvetineZone]

Firstly, yes @Chrysophylax Dives, I think that passage is very faerie.

Secondly, I was continuing The Silmarillion last night, and paused to re-read Tolkien's letter to the editor at the start of the edition I'm reading and noticed that he refers to fairy story a lot, so this illuminated this conversation further for me, I'll come back to this in a minute.

Thirdly, I like @Priya's point about wonder.

Finally, I reckon the answers to the question vary depending on whether we're answering what Tolkien himself perceives as a fairy story, especially as you already know having read so much about him, but I properly realised last night, he clearly uses the term a lot; vs what any of us might perceive as faerie. I guess to me it's both stories set in enchanted or faerie realms, but also stories which just have a certain quality to them, something magical, ethereal, whimsical, wild, otherworldly.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Whether the morning and evening of one day or of many days had passed Frodo could not tell. He did not feel either hungry or tired, only filled with wonder. The stars shone through the window and the silence of the heavens seemed to be round him. He spoke at last out of his wonder and a sudden fear of that silence.

The adventures of the Hobbits with Bombadil, in his realm and in his house, do seem peculiarly illustrative of some key statements within 'On Fairy-stories'.

[VelvetineZone]

I am now setting up a display related to fairy stories, enchantment and magic on my windowsill table.
Happened to get a book on The History of Magic out of the library last week too.

[VelvetineZone]

I've been trying to find Elizabeth Goudge's The Herb of Grace. I love several of her books for the strong sense of magic and nature, loved her children's books such Henrietta's House, Linnets and Valerians, The Little White Horse and Smoky House. I always particularly loved the woods and the sense of magic in The Herb of Grace, one of her adult books, which features references to Pan and the Wind in the Willows. I don't know if I still have a copy of it anymore, but I found a quote online.
"Upon his right was the wood of which Sally had told him, Knyghtwood, thick and deep and many centuries old. He knew these ancient woods, hung with dark curtains of shadow about pools of light, each tree as much its own world of mystery as a star in the sky, each leaf and flower as transient as a flake of fire, and yet seeming as fast held in the mystery as jewels in a king’s cloak. He knew the richness of these woods and the breath of them, pungent and warm. He knew the ancient homeliness, and the safety of them.”
I can't find the more magical quotes I want due to seemingly not having the book.

Yeats is of course one of my favourite faerie writers.
"To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand."

And I've got very fond of the faerie vibes in Jackie Morris's writing since a friend gave me The Unwinding.
"Wild dreaming is what they desire most. Dreams that hold the scent of deep green moss, lichen, the place where the roots of a tree enter the earth, old stone, the dust of a moth's wings."

[VelvetineZone]

"The Andrew Lang Lecture was important as it brought him to clarify his view of fairy stories as a legitimate literary genre, rather than something intended exclusively for children.[2]" (Wikipedia)

I was just musing on how there's a lot of my writing I don't share because it veers very much into whimsy. Elizabeth Goudge is a writer I often think of when trying to remind myself that others do weave whimsical / magical threads through their writing.

And therefore how it much be another much discussed topic that Tolkien writing On Fairy Stories, etc, would have this justifying kind of element to it.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I think the concept is a bit like ‘heaven’. Faërie is an altogether different place from what we know - and what it’s like, Tolkien is saying - cannot be adequately described in words and that is ‘directly’, or for that matter: ‘indirectly’.

I have feeling Tolkien tried later tried in life to give us a glimpse of ‘his’ Faërie through Smith of Wootton Major. Also my gut tells me that a late Bombadil poem: Once Upon a Time, is set in Faërie. Have you read it?

Don't know the poem, will look out for it. Agree on Smith of Wootten Major. On the bit like 'heaven' - yes, you are right. Recall 'Thomas the Rhymer' in 'On Fairy-stories':

Don't you see yon narrow, narrow road
So thick beset with thorns and briar's?
That is the road to righteousness
Though after it but few enquire

Don't you see yon broad, broad road
That lies across the lily leaven?
That is the road to wickedness
Though some call it the road to heaven

Don't you see yon bonnie, bonnie road
That lies across the ferny brae?
That is the road to fair Elf land
Where you and I this night must go

(That might be the third time I have quoted those lines on the plaza.)

When you say:

Faërie, Tolkien is saying - cannot be adequately described in words and that is ‘directly’, or for that matter: ‘indirectly’

While you may be quite right, now we must face the paradox that the net of words that are chapters 6, 7, and 8 of The Fellowship of the Ring do a superb job of catching us as readers in a deep enchantment, so that we feel that we are perceiving that which cannot be described. So how does Tolkien use words to do what he says words cannot do?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I was just musing on how there's a lot of my writing I don't share because it veers very much into whimsy. Elizabeth Goudge is a writer I often think of when trying to remind myself that others do weave whimsical / magical threads through their writing.

Bombadil hangs on the border of whimsy but does not fall in. He is very peculiar. I think Tolkien's first word for him and his realm is 'queer', where with regard to the land and the adventures contrassts with the 'wild' of The Hobbit. What Tolkien is doing is writing a sequel to The Hobbit, which tells of the adventures of Bilbo Baggins as he crossed to the other side of the Wild and stole a cup from a dragon, and contains a Map of Wilderland on which we can trace Bilbo's adventures, past the Last Homely House, over and then under the Misty Mountains, over the River and past the house of Beorn, and through Mirkwood. On this Map of the Wild the 'wild' begins only after the Last Homely House of Elrond, that is with the Misty Mountains, and only an arrow points beyond the margin of the Map to Hobbiton in the far West.

The lands between Bag-end and the house of Elrond were in the first edition respectable and civilized, even gentle (the three Trolls have wandered down out of the Mountains). But Tolkien's idea for the first two years of writing or so was that he was composing a story of about the same length as The Hobbit but with most of the action set before Rivendell. This entailed drawing in the Map between Hobbiton and Rivendell and, beyond the borders of the newly imagined Shire, imagining the land beyond as rather queer than wild.

Queer is used a fair bit in The Hobbit. About situations and about Bilbo himself. A very early idea of the sequel was a shift of focus from wild to queer within the world of the story.