Monday 3 August 2015

Clerk of Oxford...

She doesn't like me very much (see the thread here) but I do sympathise with A Clerk of Oxford and humbly beseech my few readers for prayers on her behalf. I would say that to know one's place in life is a great blessing, and she clearly does; she knows what she wants, and what she's good at. But I don't know mine yet so I cannot actually wish anyone happiness and keep a straight face. Happiness is for people like me, the undeserving poor in life, and God knows I am incapable of it. This is the chief reason I have never had any sympathy for Lady Diana Spencer, or indeed any famous person with troves of money. Misery is the price they pay for their privilege and who cares about their problems? As for the Oxonian Clerk, well, like Gollum, we can all weep for the hardness of the world and creep underground to shut it out, but it doesn't help much. For what it's worth, I have always enjoyed her articles and found them both uplifting in joy and edifying. To make even the smallest difference to somebody's life in that way is never without benefit and God grant that in time even the least of her aspirations will come true.

3 comments:

  1. I have been wondering, about your gold/silver article. Here is an untutored guess about the origin of mithril, somewhat tangential to your article perhaps.

    According to our lore, the wandering stars engender the metals - the sun begets gold in the earth, and the moon silver. So (in Middle-earth) what does the begetting of mithril under the earth? Mithril goes back the elder days, to Numenor itself. So what light or heavenly luminary is reponsible for it, if it is not the light of either sun or moon? Perhaps there is a clue in that it looks and glitters like silver although it cannot tarnish; and another clue in that the alloy ithildin (star-moon) made from it is visible only in the light of the moon... or the stars. Presumably the alloy was part silver which was why it was visible by moonlight, and also part mithril, which would seem to give it an affinity with the stars. So does mithril come from a time from before either sun or moon, when there were the stars only? Mithril seems to have a special connection with the elves who were awakened at this time.

    To get even more speculative: Varda made the stars and many heavenly bodies in preparation for the awakening of the elves. They were said to be made from the dew of Telperion, a dew that is specifically said to be silver. Telperion... its silver dew... the heavenly bodies... mithril. I wonder.

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  2. I have offered a prayer for her. It is an act of charity on your part to ask this of your readership. Thank you.

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  3. How dare this woman call herself a Clerk. Does she not read the texts she prints?

    As for her snippy comment when you asked her for assistance that is just rude.

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