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      19 November 1913 Tolkien attends the Exeter College Smoker, for which he has designed the programme cover: depicting merry undergraduates in evening dress dancing along the Turl, it is similar to his (presumably contemporaneous) drawing Turl Street, Oxford (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 19). The first part of the Smoker includes songs, piano and banjo solos, and character sketches; the second part consists of dance music played by the orchestra. Tolkien collects several signatures on his printed programme, including those of E.A. Barber and L.R. Farnell, friends, and performers.

      24 November 1913 The Stapeldon Society meets. Tolkien takes the minutes. Congratulations are voted to those who had organized the Smoker, and to Tolkien ‘for covering the outside of the card in black and white’ (Exeter College archives). Tolkien as Secretary is instructed to convey the Society’s congratulations to a Balliol student for placing an ‘article of common domestic utility’ upon the Martyrs’ Memorial. In a debate that follows, Tolkien speaks against the motion: ‘Europe is destined soon to lose its position of pre-eminence in world politics’. The motion carries, 9 to 1.

      December 1913 An untitled poem by Tolkien (From the Many-Willow’d Margin of the Immemorial Thames) is published in the Stapeldon Magazine for December 1913. This is the first verse of the poem From Iffley which he wrote in October 1911 (the second verse is lost by the editor of the magazine).

      1 December 1913 The Stapeldon Society meets, riotously, at 8.00 p.m. Tolkien takes the minutes, which he will later write up at length in a very graphic style: ‘At the 791st meeting … one of the world’s great battles between democracy and autocracy was fought and won, and as usual in such conflicts the weapons of democracy were hooliganism and uproar, and an unyielding pertinacity only excelled by that of the chair….’ The meeting is packed, and long before the officers enter, ‘the ominous sounds of a gigantic house athirst for their blood could be heard … to the sound of wild and impartial ululation the Pres. announced the candidates for office in Hilary Term; and the House simmered audibly while voting papers were distributed and counted.’ Tolkien is elected President for Hilary Term; he and the other successful candidates make brief speeches. But objections are made as to whether certain actions of the current President were constitutional, and later in the meeting

      all bounds, all order, and all else was forgotten; and in one long riot of raucous hubbub, of hoarse cries, brandished bottles, flying matchstands, gowns wildly fluttered, cups smashed and lights extinguished the House declared its determination to have its will and override the constitution. For precisely one calendar hour did the House battle with noise and indignation for its desire. It was at one time on the point of dissolving and becoming another Society; at another it was vociferating for Rule 40; at another for Rule 10; at another no rule at all or for the President’s head or his nether-garments.

      The evening ends with the customary vote of thanks to the outgoing officers, and a ‘vote of admiration for the rock-like constancy with which the President [the main target] had withstood this unparalleled storm or rebellious and insubordinate riot’ (Exeter College archives). The House is too exhausted to hear Mr Macdonald and Mr Blomfield debate whether they should wash themselves or take exercise, and adjourns. See note.

      5 December 1913 Tolkien writes a letter (*Oxford Letter), apparently in response to a request from the editor of the King Edward’s School Chronicle, giving an account of Old Edwardians at Oxford. It will be published as by ‘Oxon’ in the December 1913 issue.

      6 December 1913 Michaelmas Full Term ends.

      12 December 1913 Christopher Wiseman, who with his family has moved to Wandsworth Common, London, invites Tolkien to join him and G.B. Smith for a T.C.B.S. meeting at his home on 19 December. In the event, Tolkien does not attend (nor is there clear evidence that the other members met in his absence).

      15 December 1913 Tolkien is scheduled to open the Annual Old Boys Debate at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, but is suddenly taken ill. Rob Gilson therefore introduces the motion: ‘That the World is becoming over-civilised’. G.B. Smith also speaks in favour.

      16 December 1913 Apparently having recovered from his illness, Tolkien captains the Old Edwardians in a rugby match against King Edward’s School. Gilson, Smith, and Wiseman also play. King Edward’s School wins, 14 to 10.

      Late December 1913–early January 1914 Tolkien visits Barnt Green. He writes a poem, Outside, suggested by a tune heard in 1912, and apparently is again involved in amateur theatricals (on 4 January 1914 Rob Gilson will write that his letter will probably arrive on the morning of Tolkien’s ‘production’).

      ?17–?19 December 1913 Tolkien informs his T.C.B.S. friends that he is engaged, but gives no details about Edith, not even her name. He possibly tells G.B. Smith in person (no letter of congratulations from Smith is in Tolkien’s T.C.B.S. correspondence file) and writes to Wiseman and Gilson. See note.

      20 December 1913 (postmark) Christopher Wiseman sends congratulations to Tolkien on his engagement, on a postcard addressed to him at Barnt Green.

1914

      January 1914 Tolkien borrows from the Exeter College library A History of English Sounds from the Earliest Period by Henry Sweet. He will do so again on 5 November 1914.

      4 January 1914 Rob Gilson writes to Tolkien, sending congratulations on his engagement. G.B. Smith has asked him to attend a T.C.B.S. meeting next week, and Gilson hopes that Tolkien will be there too (in the event, he does not attend).

      Later in 1914 Tolkien visits Cromer in Norfolk, a seaside resort on the north-east coast of England. The occasion will later inspire a poem, The Lonely Harebell (see entry for 10 November–1 December 1916).

      6 January 1914 Tolkien apparently decides that the new sketchbook he began the previous summer should be devoted henceforth to imaginative subjects. Probably at this time he tears out the three topographical drawings he had already made in it and writes on its cover: *The Book of Ishness. He inserts (now or later) an undated drawing, Ei uchnem: Russian Boatmen’s Song, a stylized view of a boat on a river. This is followed in the book by a sketch of a fantastic house in an apparently northern landscape (‘Northern House’, Artist and Illustrator, fig. 38), dated ‘Jan[uary] 6 1914’. This is followed in the book by three undated works, An Osity or Balliol College Unmasked, Eeriness (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 40), and Childhood Memories of My Grandmother’s House.

      8 January 1914 Tolkien is in Warwick at the end of Christmas vacation. Today, the anniversary of their reunion, Edith is received into the Catholic Church, and she and Tolkien are formally betrothed in the church at Warwick by Father Murphy. To celebrate the occasion, probably on this date but certainly during January, Tolkien writes a poem, Magna Dei Gloria (Warwick) dedicated ‘To EMB’ (Edith Mary Bratt).

      12 January 1914 Tolkien paints another watercolour, Beyond (Artist and Illustrator, fig. 39) in The Book of Ishness, and probably also the closely related drawings that follow, There and Here.

      18 January 1914 Hilary Full Term begins.

      Hilary Term 1914 Kenneth Sisam continues to teach the Anglo-Saxon Reader (Prose), Elementary Historical Grammar, Havelok, and the Anglo-Saxon Reader (Verse). Tolkien almost certainly attends Sisam’s two new classes, Beowulf on Wednesdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 21 January, and The Pearl on Saturdays at 10.00 a.m. in the Examination Schools, beginning 24 January. He probably also attends A.S. Napier’s continuation of his lectures on English Historical Grammar, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools, beginning 23 January; on Morris and Skeat’s Specimens, on Thursdays at 12.00 noon in the Examination Schools; and on Old English Dialects,

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