from a letter to Christopher Tolkien, 11 July 1972 (J.R.R. Tolkien)

I have at last got busy about Mummy's grave ... The inscription I should like is:

EDITH MARY TOLKIEN

1889-1971

Lúthien

: brief and jejune, except for Lúthien, which says for me more than a multitude of words: for she was (and knew she was) my Lúthien.*

July 13.  Say what you feel, without reservation, about this addition.  I began this under the stress of great emotion & regret - and in any case I am afflicted from time to time (increasingly) with an overwhelming sense of bereavement.  I need advice.  Yet I hope none of my children will feel that the use of this name is a sentimental fancy.  It is at any rate not comparable to the quoting of pet names in obituaries.  I never called Edith Lúthien - but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion.  It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while).  In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing - and dance.  But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos.

I will say no more now.  But I should like ere long to have a long talk with you.  For if as seems probable I shall never write any ordered biography - it is against my nature, which expresses itself about things deepest felt in tales and myths - someone close in heart to me should know something about things that records do not record: the dreadful sufferings of our childhoods, from which we rescued one another, but could not wholly heal the wounds that later often proved disabling; the sufferings that we endured after our love began - all of which (over and above our personal weaknesses) might help to make pardonable, or understandable, the lapses and darknesses which at times marred our lives - and to explain how these never touched our depths nor dimmed our memories of our youthful love.  For ever (especially when alone) we still met in the woodland glade, and went hand in hand many times to escape the shadow of imminent death before our last parting.

*She knew the earliest form of the legend (written in hospital), and also the poem eventually printed as Aragorn's song in L.R.

from The Family From One End Street, chapter I, The Christenings (Eve Garnett)

Twin boys came next, and Mr. Ruggles, who had called at the Vicarage to ask for kind assistance in clothing his sons, only one having been expected, spent the Sunday after their arrival in church.  This was partly in order to be out of the way of the fuss at home which the twins' arrival had caused, and partly as a kind of compliment to the Vicar's wife who had been so obliging in the matter of extra baby clothes.  For Mr. Ruggles was not an ardent church goer, and it had crossed his mind on the Vicarage door-step that his last attendance had been the Harvest Festival held several months previously.

Although he knelt, stood, and sat down with the congregation, Mr. Ruggles found it hard to keep his attention on the service, for his mind was busy with many things.  At the present moment the Twins filled most of it, but one corner, his gardening corner, was very much occupied with the progress of his spring vegetables and how it was that Mr. Hook at No. 2 One End Street was so much farther on with his leeks and carrots.  Then there was the problem of whether one or two more hens could be squeezed into the soap-box.  If the family was going to increase at the present rate, thought Mr. Ruggles, the more he could produce in the food line at home the better.  And then, always, of course, there was the Question of the Pig.  Here Jo gave himself up to a few moments happy dreaming ... Surely, in that corner between the hen-box and the little tool-shed, there was room enough for a small sty; he could take in a bit of the flower border and Rosie could have her clothes line a few inches shorter - come to that, he might even pull down the tool-shed altogether and keep his tools in the kitchen, though no doubt Rosie would object.  Anyway, with twins in the house, it was high time the Pig Question was really considered seriously.   There was a fleeting vision of the Sanitary Inspector, but it was of the briefest, and as the congregation sat down for the Second Lesson, hens, vegetables, and twins once more filled Mr. Ruggles' mind.

'Now the names of the twelve apostles are these,' read the Vicar.

Jo pricked up his ears.  Names.  There was another problem.  Rosie had been very quiet about names this time.  He'd said nothing himself, but he was sure she'd something up her sleeve - he believed she'd never quite forgiven him over that Carnation business and Kate.  It looked as if he ought to let her have some say in the matter this time, but, really, he drew the line at fancy and flowery names for boys,  and they would be fancy or flowery if Rosie had a hand in it he was sure.

'Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother,' read the Vicar, 'James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew ...'

'Seem to go in pairs-like,' said Jo to himself.  It seemed encouraging.  'Better pick two of these and get it over,' he thought, but the Vicar was reading on, and the next thing Jo caught was about a workman being worthy of his meat and that, too, he felt, was singularly appropriate and hoped his Sunday dinner would be a good one!  Then, as if an idea had suddenly struck him, he seized a prayer book from the ledge in front of him, and, after wetting his finger and rustling many pages found the place he wanted, he pulled a stub of pencil from his pocket, held it poised over the list of the apostles, shut his eyes and brought it down 'plop!'  James and John.  Jo breathed a sigh of relief - he'd been very afraid of Philip and Bartholomew - especially Bartholomew.  'That decides it,' he muttered, and Mrs. Chips, the grocer's wife, sitting resplendent in sapphire blue velvet in the farthest corner of the pew so that no one by any possible chance should think they were friends (so great is the gulf between grocery and scavenging), turned a stern and reproving eye on him.  But Mr. Ruggles was oblivious; a problem was solved, and his mind made up for him - a labour-saving device he much appreciated.  The Twins' names were settled, and he would slip round to the vestry immediately after the service and arrange for the christening.