''Roverandom'' is a novella by
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
, originally told in 1925, about the adventures of a young dog, Rover. In the story, an irritable wizard turns Rover into a toy, and Rover goes to the Moon and under the sea in order to find the wizard again to turn him back into a normal-sized dog. The author wrote ''Roverandom'' for his son Michael to amuse him upon the loss of his favourite toy, a little leaden dog which he lost on a beach of grey shingle stones the same size and colour as the toy. The work is in tone a children's story, but contains many allusions and references in the manner of ''
Farmer Giles of Ham
''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 named Chrysophylax, and how Giles manages to use these to ...
''.
It was submitted for publication in 1937 after the success of ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the '' ...
'', but was not published for over sixty years, finally being released in 1998. ''Roverandom'' was included in the collection ''
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 ...
'' from its 2009 reprinting onwards.
Characters
Major
* Rover(andom) - The main character. A young puppy that is white with black ears. He is rather rude and excitable when first introduced. This is what causes him to irritate Artaxerxes in the first place.
* Artaxerxes - The wizard who meets Roverandom while on holiday. Wears a green hat with a blue feather in it. Comes from
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
but got lost and now lives in
Pershore
Pershore is a market town in the Wychavon district in Worcestershire, England, on the banks of the River Avon. The town is part of the West Worcestershire parliamentary constituency. At the 2011 census, the population was 7,125. The town i ...
.
* Psamathos Psamathides - The chief of all Psamathists (sand-sorcerers). He is described as being the size of a large dog and being very ugly, with long ears that stick up. Days and nights he hides closely under the surface of the cove's sands, taking a nap - or two. He snuggles himself into the sand as into a warm blanket and only comes out when the sky begins to look like teatime or when some amusement is going on: a dance of the
mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaids are sometimes asso ...
s, for example. Otherwise one can hardly find him, tucked up amidst the endlessly stretching covesands. (This being somewhat resembles the Psammead from E. Nesbit's ''
Five Children and It
''Five Children and It'' is a children's novel by English author E. Nesbit. It was originally published in 1902 in the '' Strand Magazine'' under the general title ''The Psammead, or the Gifts'', with a segment appearing each month from April ...
''.)
* Mew - A
seagull
Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...
that carries Roverandom down the moon path to the Moon.
* The Man in the Moon - The greatest of all magicians. He gives Rover the name Roverandom, so as not to confuse the two Rovers.
* Rover the Moon Dog - The Man in the Moon's dog.
* Rover the Sea Dog - The Dog under the Sea.
Minor
* Tinker - The cat whom Rover lived with before becoming a toy.
* Little Boy Two - The boy who owned Rover as a toy. An allusion to Michael Tolkien, the author's second son.
* the Great White Dragon - The chief of the Moon's
dragons
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 ...
.
* the
Sea-serpent
A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of dragon sea monster described in various mythologies, most notably Mesopotamian (Tiamat), Judaeo-Christian (Leviathan), Greek (Cetus, Echidna, Hydra, Scylla), and Norse (Jörmungandr).
Mythology and folk ...
* Uin - The
right whale
Right whales are three species of large baleen whales of the genus ''Eubalaena'': the North Atlantic right whale (''E. glacialis''), the North Pacific right whale (''E. japonica'') and the Southern right whale (''E. australis''). They are clas ...
that takes Roverandom under the Sea.
* Grandmother - Roverandom's first owner. It is revealed at the end that she is the grandmother of Little Boy Two.
* the mer-king - ruler of the
mer-folk
* Mrs. Artaxerxes - Daughter of the mer-king and wife of Artaxerxes.
Places
* The Moon - Rover goes to the
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
seeking the Man in the Moon's help. The Moon is highly fantasized; envisioned by Tolkien as a place full of mythical creatures reminiscent of those found in the works of
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...
. Traits of the Moon's trees foreshadow those of the
mallorn
This list of fictional plants describes invented plants that appear in works of fiction.
In fiction
*Audrey Jr.: a man-eating plant in the 1960 film ''The Little Shop of Horrors''
**Audrey II: a singing, fast-talking alien plant with a taste for ...
trees of
Lothlórien
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Lothlórien or Lórien is the fairest realm of the Elves remaining in Middle-earth during the Third Age. It is ruled by Galadriel and Celeborn from their city of tree-houses at Caras Galadhon. The wood-elves ...
.
Christina Scull
Christina Scull (born 6 March 1942 in Bristol, England) is a British researcher and writer best known for her books about the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Biography
Christina Scull was born in Bristol and was educated at the Redmaids' High Scho ...
& Wayne G. Hammond
Wayne Gordon Hammond (born February 11, 1953 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American scholar known for his research and writings on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Biography
Wayne Hammond was born in Cleveland, Ohio and then raised in Brooklyn, Ohi ...
(1998, editors), ''Roverandom'', 2013 pocket edition, HarperCollins, Notes p. 177;
* The Cove - Where Psamathos lives and Roverandom is accidentally left by Boy Two. It is located on the north-east coast of England. Its description as a "queer cove", an allusion to the English expression meaning 'odd fellow, rogue', is one of many plays-on-words in the book.
* The Isle of Dogs - An island Mew and Rover fly over on the way to the moon. Mew describes it as a place lucky or deserving lost dogs go. A place where they can make as much noise as they want, with bone trees growing everywhere. It is a fanciful allusion to the
Isle of Dogs
The Isle of Dogs is a large peninsula bounded on three sides by a large meander in the River Thames in East London, England, which includes the Cubitt Town, Millwall and Canary Wharf districts. The area was historically part of the Manor, Ham ...
and the
Dogger Bank
Dogger Bank (Dutch: ''Doggersbank'', German: ''Doggerbank'', Danish: ''Doggerbanke'') is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about off the east coast of England.
During the last ice age the bank was part of a large landmass c ...
.
* Under the
Sea
The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...
- The mer-king's realm
* Faery: the tale's brief glimpse of the
Shadowy Seas and
Elvenhome
Valinor (Quenya'': Land of the Valar'') or the Blessed Realms is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the home of the immortal Vala (Middle-earth), Valar on the continent of Aman, far to the west of Middle-earth; he used the na ...
links it to Tolkien'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 t ...
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 ...
.
Sources
* Tolkien, JRR., ''Roverandom''. London:
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
, 1998.
References
{{Authority control
1998 short stories
Short stories by J. R. R. Tolkien
Short stories set on the Moon
Fictional dogs
Fantasy short stories
Novels published posthumously
HarperCollins books
Animal tales
Mermaid novels