Editing J. R. R. Tolkien (section)

==== Home front ====
{{further|The Great War and Middle-earth}}

A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties, being deemed medically unfit for general service.<ref>{{harvnb|Garth|2003|pp=207 ''et seq.''}}</ref><ref>Tolkien's [[Webley Revolver|Webley .455]] service revolver was put on display in 2006 as part of a [[Battle of the Somme]] exhibition in the [[Imperial War Museum]], London. (See {{cite web |title=Second Lieutenant J R R Tolkien |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/second-lieutenant-j-r-r-tolkien |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181125162651/https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/second-lieutenant-j-r-r-tolkien |archive-date=25 November 2018 |website=Battle of the Somme |publisher=[[Imperial War Museum]]}} and {{cite web |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30034679 |title=Webley.455 Mark 6 (VI Military) |work=Imperial War Museum Collection Search |publisher=[[Imperial War Museum]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181125162641/https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30034679 |archive-date=25 November 2018 |url-status=live}})</ref><ref>Several of his service records, mostly dealing with his health problems, can be seen at the National Archives. ({{cite web |title=Officer's service record: J R R Tolkien |url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/people/tolkien.htm  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090308111409/http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/people/tolkien.htm |archive-date=8 March 2009 |access-date=2 December 2007 |website=First World War |publisher=National Archives}})</ref> During his recovery in a cottage in [[Little Haywood]], [[Staffordshire, England|Staffordshire]], he began to work on what he called ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]'', beginning with ''[[The Fall of Gondolin]]''. ''Lost Tales'' represented Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, a project he would abandon without ever completing.<ref>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|p=98}}</ref> Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps. It was at this time that Edith bore their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien. In a 1941 letter, Tolkien described his son John as "(conceived and carried during the starvation-year of 1917 and the great [[U-boat Campaign (World War I)|U-boat campaign]]) round about the [[Battle of Cambrai (1917)|Battle of Cambrai]], when the end of the war seemed as far off as it does now".<ref name="Letters, No. 43" group="T" /> Tolkien was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 6 January 1918.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=30588 |supp=y|page=3561|date=19 March 1918}}</ref> When he was stationed at [[Kingston upon Hull]], he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby [[Roos]], and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock. After his wife's death in 1971, Tolkien remembered:<ref name="Letter 340" group="T" />

{{blockquote|I never called Edith ''Luthien''—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<ref>Following rural English usage, Tolkien used the name "hemlock" for various plants with white flowers in umbels, resembling [[poison hemlock|hemlock]] (''Conium maculatum''); the flowers Edith danced among were more probably [[cow parsley]] (''Anthriscus sylvestris'') or [[wild carrot]] (''Daucus carota''). See [[John Garth (author)|John Garth]], ''[[Tolkien and the Great War]]'' (Harper Collins/Houghton Mifflin 2003, chapter 12), and Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, & Edmund Weiner, ''[[The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary]]'' (OUP 2006).</ref> 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 {{em|dance}}. But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and {{em|I}} cannot plead before the inexorable [[Mandos]].<ref name="Letter 340" group="T">{{harvnb|Carpenter|Tolkien|1981|loc=''Letters'' #340 to Christopher Tolkien, 11 July 1972.}}</ref>}}

On 16 July 1919, Tolkien was taken off active service, at Fovant, on Salisbury Plain, with a temporary disability pension.<ref name="Grotta p. 58">{{harvnb|Grotta|2002|p=58}}</ref> On 3 November 1920, Tolkien was demobilized and left the army, retaining his rank of lieutenant.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=32110 |supp=y|page=10711|date=2 November 1920}}</ref>