Perhaps what is most intriguing is his declaration that he “knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless—before the Dark Lord came from Outside.” Here is a clear affirmation that he is prelapsarian, that he existed before the Fall. He predates not only the arrival of the other creatures but also the arrival of evil. A Christian can hardly fail to read these lines about an age of innocence, free of sin and corruption, before the arrival of a Dark Lord from Outside, without visions of the Garden of Eden springing to mind. This is accentuated when we recall Tolkien’s allegorical reading of
...more
