Unit 5: Vocabulary from Readings 3

By the 19th century this area was a last refuge for a unique dialect of the Finnish language.

“It’s an amazing thing to be in the presence of a man singing even a snippet of the poem,” says Davis of his meeting with Huovinen, “because it’s so powerful that even if you don’t speak Finnish it’s profoundly moving just to listen to it, just the cadence of the sounds.

It quite intoxicated me; and I gave up the attempt to invent an ‘unrecorded’ Germanic language, and my ‘own language’—or series of invented languages—became heavily Finnicized [sic] in phonetic pattern and structure.

Tolkien readers have long seen Tolkien’s bucolic vision of rural England represented in Middle-earth’s Shire, and recognized English farmers in characters such as the hobbit Sam.

The idea that this whole fabric of famous fabrications was real so established itself in his mind that no history in the world was truer for him.

And so, by now quite insane, he conceived the strangest notion that ever took shape in a madman’s head...to become a knight errant, and to travel about the world with his armor and his arms and his horse in search of adventures, and to practice all those activities that he knew from his books were practiced by knights errant, redressing all kinds of grievances, and exposing himself to perils and dangers that he would overcome and thus gain eternal fame and renown.

And so, by now quite insane, he conceived the strangest notion that ever took shape in a madman’s head...to become a knight errant, and to travel about the world with his armor and his arms and his horse in search of adventures, and to practice all those activities that he knew from his books were practiced by knights errant, redressing all kinds of grievances, and exposing himself to perils and dangers that he would overcome and thus gain eternal fame and renown.

He scoured and mended it as best he could; yet he realized that it had one important defect, which was that the headpiece was not a complete helmet but just a simple steel cap; he was ingenious enough, however, to overcome this problem, constructing out of cardboard something resembling a visor and face-guard which, once inserted into the steel cap, gave it the appearance of a full helmet.

He spent four days considering what name to give the nag; for (he told himself) it wasn’t fitting that the horse of such a famous knight errant, and such a fine horse in its own right, too, shouldn’t have some name of eminence...

And so, after a long succession of names that he invented, eliminated and struck out, added, deleted and remade in his mind and in his imagination, he finally decided to call it Rocinante, that is Hackafore, a name which, in his opinion, was lofty and sonorous and expressed what the creature had been when it was a humble hack, before it became what it was now—the first and foremost of all the hacks in the world.

Having, then, cleaned his armor, turned his steel cap into a visored helmet, baptized his nag and confirmed himself, he realized that the only remaining task was to find a lady of whom he could be enamored; for a knight errant without a ladylove is a tree without leaves or fruit, a body without a soul.

If, for my wicked sins or my good fortune, I encounter some giant, as knights errant usually do, and I dash him down in single combat, or cleave him asunder, or in short, defeat and vanquish him, will it not be proper to have someone to whom I can send him as a tribute, so that he can come before my sweet lady and fall to his knees and say in humble tones of submission...

“It is perfectly clear,” replied Don Quixote, “that you are but a raw novice in this matter of adventures. They are giants; and if you are frightened, you can take yourself away and say your prayers while I engage them in fierce and arduous combat.”

All the more so as I believe, indeed I am certain, that the same sage Frestón who stole my library and my books has just turned these giants into windmills, to deprive me of the glory of my victory, such is the enmity he feels for me; but in the end his evil arts will avail him little against the might of my sword.