Unknown CS Lewis poem inspired by Saxon epic comes to light
‘I was astonished to find that this poem doesn’t appear in any of CS Lewis’s collected works’
A PREVIOUSLY unknown poem by CS Lewis, in which he finds inspiration in whiskey, warm blankets and the AngloSaxon epic Beowulf, has been found.
The Chronicles of Narnia author wrote the 12-line alliterative poem in 1935, on notepaper from Magdalen College, Oxford, where he taught.
His passionate interest in Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is reflected in the title, Mód Þrýþe Ne Waeg, the pen name he used, Nat Whilk, and the word Þrýþ in the second line.
It was a thank-you poem from one medievalist to another, who would have understood the language and allusions to Beowulf, through the style in which the verse epic was written and its metre.
Lewis wrote the poem after visiting the Manchester home of Dr Ida Lilian Gordon, a specialist in Medieval English and Old Norse, and her husband, Eric Valentine Gordon, a professor of English language. The couple were also good friends with JRR Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings. The poem casts light on the friendships between these fantasy writers and medievalists.
Thanking the Gordons for his stay, Lewis wrote: “…Talk was kindly,/ Whetted with whiskey. The white blanket,/ Winter’s weaving, worked about us/ Till the house was hush’d, the hearth brighter,/ And bed-time better…”
Written in black ink, it had been overlooked among documents relating to Tolkien and the Gordons acquired by the University of Leeds a decade ago.
It has now been discovered by Dr Andoni Cossio, of the University of the Basque Country and the University of Glasgow, while doing some research.
He said: “The discovery made me feel elated. I was astonished to find that this poem doesn’t appear in any of [Lewis’s] collected works. It is difficult to find new works from these writers because people have mined the archives. Normally we get letters or other documents, but not poetry.
“Lewis published many poems in modern English which adapt Old English metre – The Nameless Isle is a good example. He signed other poems under the pen name Nat Whilk.”
Dr Cossio added: “It had everything I could wish for – biographical details, Old English, alliterative metre, and Lewis’s writing at its best.
“It had passed completely unnoticed. It was kept by the Gordons, then by their daughter, until she sold the collection of letters and different manuscripts that are now at Leeds. So this has been hidden from the public eye.”
He added that the poem’s Old English title is complicated to translate and involves playful references to Beowulf, which Lewis taught at Oxford.
Dr Cossio said: “Brýþ, according to Lewis and Tolkien, is the name of Offa’s evil queen in the Beowulf poem… Mód Þrýþe Ne Waeg is translated very poetically within the poem by Lewis as ‘whose heart knows not the temper of Þrýþ’, which means that Ida Gordon is the exact opposite of Þrýþ, that she was a good human being.”
In his critical commentary in the Journal of Inklings Studies, Dr Cossio writes: “For Tolkien, Lewis and their circle, poetry was a way to explore their shared love of language and lore, and to develop their own writing. The thing I like most about this poem is that it opens a little door to that world.”
He adds that, while Tolkien wrote the Gordons an Old English bridal song as a wedding present in 1930, Lewis’s friendship with the couple has been overlooked until now: “It is plain from the content of the poem and the invitation to stay that both wife and husband were more than acquaintances.
“However, there is no trace of their friendship in Lewis’s published biographical details or letters. In contrast, it is well recorded that Lewis and Tolkien became friends at Oxford.”
Simon Horobin, professor of English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, and author of the forthcoming book CS Lewis’s Oxford, said: “We tend to associate Beowulf with Tolkien rather than Lewis. But this new discovery reminds us that Lewis was also immersed in the poem.
“In CS Lewis’s Oxford, I talk about Lewis’s late-night ‘Beer and Beowulf ’ sessions at Magdalen, at which students recited the poem aloud and drank beer from the barrel Lewis kept in his rooms. Tolkien was an occasional visitor.”