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''Farmer Giles of Ham'' is a comic medieval fable written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1937 and published in 1949. The story describes the encounters between Farmer Giles and a wily
dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
named Chrysophylax, and how Giles manages to use these to rise from humble beginnings to rival the king of the land. It is cheerfully
anachronistic An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common ty ...
and light-hearted, set in Britain in an imaginary period of the Dark Ages, and featuring mythical creatures, medieval knights, and primitive firearms. It is only tangentially connected with the author's
Middle-earth Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the '' Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf''. Middle-earth is ...
legendarium Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his ''The Lord of the Rings'', and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of ''The Silmarill ...
: both were originally intended as essays in "English mythology". The book was originally illustrated by
Pauline Baynes Pauline Diana Baynes (9 September 1922 – 1 August 2008) was an English illustrator, author and commercial artist. She contributed drawings and paintings to more than 200 books, mostly in the children's genre. She was the first illustrat ...
. The story has appeared with other works by Tolkien in omnibus editions, including ''
The Tolkien Reader ''The Tolkien Reader'' is an anthology of works by J. R. R. Tolkien. It includes a variety of short stories, poems, a play and some non-fiction. It compiles material previously published as three separate shorter books (''Tree and Leaf, Farmer Gi ...
'' and ''
Tales from the Perilous Realm ''The Tolkien Reader'' is an anthology of works by J. R. R. Tolkien. It includes a variety of short stories, poems, a play and some non-fiction. It compiles material previously published as three separate shorter books (''Tree and Leaf, Farmer Gi ...
''. Tolkien dedicated ''Farmer Giles of Ham'' to Cyril Hackett Wilkinson (1888–1960), a don he knew at
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...
. Tolkien gives the reason for this dedication in a letter to the publisher, dated 5 July 1947:
'Farmer Giles of Ham''was, in fact, written to order, to be read to the Lovelace Society at
Worcester College Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms w ...
; and was read to them at a sitting. For that reason I should like to put an inscription to C. H. Wilkinson on a fly-leaf, since it was Col. Wilkinson of that College who egged me to it ....


Plot summary

Farmer Giles (''Ægidius Ahenobarbus Julius Agricola de Hammo'', "Giles Redbeard Julius, Farmer of Ham") is not a hero. He is fat and red-bearded and enjoys a slow, comfortable life. But a rather deaf and short-sighted
giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...
blunders on to his land, and Giles manages to ward him away with a
blunderbuss The blunderbuss is a firearm with a short, large caliber barrel which is flared at the muzzle and frequently throughout the entire bore, and used with shot and other projectiles of relevant quantity or caliber. The blunderbuss is commonly consid ...
shot in his general direction. The people of the village cheer: Farmer Giles has become a hero. His reputation spreads across the kingdom, and he is rewarded by the King with a sword named Caudimordax ("Tailbiter")—which turns out to be a powerful weapon against dragons. The giant, on returning home, relates to his friends that there are no more knights in the Middle Kingdom, just stinging flies—actually the scrap metal shot from the blunderbuss—and this entices a dragon, Chrysophylax Dives, to investigate the area. The terrified neighbours all expect the accidental hero Farmer Giles to deal with him. The story parodies the great dragon-slaying traditions. The knights sent by the King to pursue the dragon are useless fops, more intent on "precedence and etiquette" than on the huge dragon footprints littering the landscape. The only part of a 'dragon' they know is the annual celebratory dragon-tail cake. Giles by contrast clearly recognises the danger, and resents being sent with them to face it. But hapless farmers can be forced to become heroes, and Giles shrewdly makes the best of the situation. It has been suggested that the Middle Kingdom is based on early
Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ye ...
, and that Giles's break-away realm (the Little Kingdom) is based on Frithuwald's Surrey.Patricia Reynolds (1991), 'Frithuwold and the Farmer', ''Mallorn'' (journal of
the Tolkien Society The Tolkien Society is an educational charity and literary society devoted to the study and promotion of the life and works of the author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien. It began informally in 1969, and held its inaugural meeting in 1970. It ho ...
), issue 28, pp. 7–10


Philological humour

Tolkien, by profession a philologist, sprinkled several philological jokes into the tale, including a variety of ingeniously fake etymologies. Almost all the place-names are supposed to occur relatively close to
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, along the
Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the ...
, or along the route to London. At the end of the story, Giles is made Lord of
Tame Tame may refer to: *Taming, the act of training wild animals *River Tame, Greater Manchester *River Tame, West Midlands and the Tame Valley *Tame, Arauca, a Colombian town and municipality * "Tame" (song), a song by the Pixies from their 1989 alb ...
, and Count of
Worminghall Worminghall is a village and civil parish in the Buckinghamshire district of the ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. The village is beside a brook that forms most of the eastern boundary of the parish. The brook joins the River Thame ...
. The village of Oakley, burnt to the ground by the dragon early in the story, may also be named after Oakley, Buckinghamshire, near to Thame. Tolkien insists, tongue in cheek, that the village of Thame originally referred to the Tame Dragon housed in it, and that "tame with an h is a folly without warrant." Another joke puts a question concerning the definition of
blunderbuss The blunderbuss is a firearm with a short, large caliber barrel which is flared at the muzzle and frequently throughout the entire bore, and used with shot and other projectiles of relevant quantity or caliber. The blunderbuss is commonly consid ...
to "the four wise clerks of Oxenford" (a reference to
Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
's
Clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service c ...
; Tolkien had worked for
Henry Bradley Henry Bradley, FBA (3 December 1845 – 23 May 1923) was a British philologist and lexicographer who succeeded James Murray as senior editor of the '' Oxford English Dictionary'' (OED). Early life Bradley had humble beginnings as a farmer's s ...
, one of the four main editors of the '' Oxford English Dictionary''):
A short gun with a large bore firing many balls or slugs, and capable of doing execution within a limited range without exact aim. (Now superseded, in civilised countries, by other firearms.)
and then satirises it with application to the situation at hand:
However, Farmer Giles's blunderbuss had a wide mouth that opened like a horn, and it did not fire balls or slugs, but anything that he could spare to stuff in. And it did not do execution, because he seldom loaded it, and never let it off. The sight of it was usually enough for his purpose. And this country was not yet civilised, for the blunderbuss was not superseded: it was indeed the only kind of gun that there was, and rare at that.
Tom Shippey Thomas Alan Shippey (born 9 September 1943) is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the ...
comments: "Giles's blunderbuss ... defies the definition and works just the same." (Introduction to ''Tales from the Perilous Realm'').


Chrysophylax Dives

Chrysophylax Dives () is a comically villainous dragon. He stands midway between Tolkien's
Smaug Smaug () is a dragon and the main antagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel '' The Hobbit'', his treasure and the mountain he lives in being the goal of the quest. Powerful and fearsome, he invaded the Dwarf kingdom of Erebor 150 years pri ...
, evil and greedy, and
Kenneth Grahame Kenneth Grahame ( ; 8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is most famous for ''The Wind in the Willows'' (1908), a classic of children's literature, as well as '' The Reluctant Dragon''. Both books w ...
's Reluctant Dragon, comical and timid. ''Chrysophýlax'' () is Greek for "gold-guard" and () is
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "rich". Chrysophylax comes across as a pompous aristocrat—rich, vain, and arrogant, but capable of compromise if handled correctly. Farmer Giles learns that he can be bullied, but is smart enough not to push him to desperation.


Caudimordax

Caudimordax is the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
name of "Tailbiter", the sword of Farmer Giles. The sword cannot be sheathed when a dragon comes within five miles of its bearer's presence. Four generations earlier, the sword belonged to Bellomarius, "the greatest of all the dragon-slayers" in the Middle Kingdom. Farmer Giles is granted this antiquated sword—by then become unfashionable—as a reward for driving off a
giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...
from his fields with his
blunderbuss The blunderbuss is a firearm with a short, large caliber barrel which is flared at the muzzle and frequently throughout the entire bore, and used with shot and other projectiles of relevant quantity or caliber. The blunderbuss is commonly consid ...
. He later uses the sword to capture and control the dragon.


Garm

Garm is the talking dog. The dog is both vain and cowardly. The name is derived from the Norse mythological dog of the same name, Garm.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Farmer Giles Of Ham Giles of Ham Books by J. R. R. Tolkien 1949 fantasy novels British fantasy novels British novellas 1937 fantasy novels Novels set in the Middle Ages Allen & Unwin books