In a letter written in 1958, Tolkien discussed the significance of his “taste in languages,” which was “obviously a large ingredient in The Lord of the Rings.”1 In the same letter, he quoted with evident approval a correspondent who had seen a connection between lembas, the Elvish waybread, and viaticum, which is the term used in the Catholic Church for the Eucharistic host administered to the dying. This connection is accentuated by the linguistic link between the two words. Viaticum essentially means waybread, from the Latin via, meaning “way,” and from the fact that the thing being given
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