The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late
Encyclopedia
The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late is the imagined original ditty that is recorded in 'our time' as the simplified nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle
". The supposed original was invented (by back formation) by J. R. R. Tolkien
. The title of this version is given in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
.
In the Inn at Bree
("At the Sign of the Prancing Pony", The Fellowship of the Ring
Chapter 9) Frodo
jumps on a table and recites "a ridiculous song" invented by Bilbo
. "Here it is in full," said Tolkien. "Only a few words of it are now, as a rule, remembered."
There follows the tale, in thirteen ballad
-like five-line stanzas, introducing each element in turn: "the Man in the Moon" himself, the ostler's "tipsy cat/ that plays a five-stringed fiddle", the little dog, the "hornéd cow" and the silver dishes and spoons.
Note that the cow is able to jump over the Moon with ease because the Man in the Moon has temporarily brought it down to Earth
.
Tom Shippey
cites this 1923 poem and its mate, "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon" (also from 1923, also subsequently included in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil) as typical examples of Tolkien's working strategy for reconstructing philological information about sources now lost. In this case the question is: what lies behind the abbreviated version of this poem that survives as a well-known but nonsensical nursery rhyme? By imagining a text that might reasonably have left the surviving rhyme, one can deduce clues that might have left other artifacts in surviving literature. Shippey argues that many of the scenarios in Tolkien's more serious work are similar recreations ("'asterisk' poems" in Shippey's phrase), attempting to explain abstruse passages in surviving Old English and Old Norse texts, especially from Beowulf.
Hey Diddle Diddle
"Hey Diddle Diddle" is an English nursery rhyme...
". The supposed original was invented (by back formation) by J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
. The title of this version is given in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is a collection of poetry written by J. R. R. Tolkien and published in 1962. The book contains 16 poems, only two of which deal with Tom Bombadil, a character who is most famous for his encounter with Frodo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring...
.
In the Inn at Bree
Bree (Middle-earth)
Bree is a fictional village in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, east of the Shire and south of Fornost Erain. It is thought to have been inspired by the Buckinghamshire village of Brill, which Tolkien visited regularly in his early years at Oxford...
("At the Sign of the Prancing Pony", The Fellowship of the Ring
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes of the epic novel The Lord of the Rings by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It takes place in the fictional universe Middle-earth. It was originally published on July 29, 1954 in the United Kingdom...
Chapter 9) Frodo
Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.He is the main protagonist of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He was a hobbit of the Shire who inherited Sauron's Ring from Bilbo Baggins and undertook the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom...
jumps on a table and recites "a ridiculous song" invented by Bilbo
Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist and titular character of The Hobbit and a supporting character in The Lord of the Rings, two of the most well-known of J. R. R...
. "Here it is in full," said Tolkien. "Only a few words of it are now, as a rule, remembered."
There follows the tale, in thirteen ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
-like five-line stanzas, introducing each element in turn: "the Man in the Moon" himself, the ostler's "tipsy cat/ that plays a five-stringed fiddle", the little dog, the "hornéd cow" and the silver dishes and spoons.
Note that the cow is able to jump over the Moon with ease because the Man in the Moon has temporarily brought it down to Earth
Arda
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Arda is the name given to the Earth in a period of prehistory, wherein the places mentioned in The Lord of the Rings and related material once existed...
.
Tom Shippey
Tom Shippey
Thomas Alan Shippey is a scholar of medieval literature, including that of Anglo-Saxon England, and of modern fantasy and science fiction, in particular the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, about whom he has written several scholarly studies. He is widely considered one of the leading academic scholars...
cites this 1923 poem and its mate, "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon" (also from 1923, also subsequently included in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil) as typical examples of Tolkien's working strategy for reconstructing philological information about sources now lost. In this case the question is: what lies behind the abbreviated version of this poem that survives as a well-known but nonsensical nursery rhyme? By imagining a text that might reasonably have left the surviving rhyme, one can deduce clues that might have left other artifacts in surviving literature. Shippey argues that many of the scenarios in Tolkien's more serious work are similar recreations ("'asterisk' poems" in Shippey's phrase), attempting to explain abstruse passages in surviving Old English and Old Norse texts, especially from Beowulf.