Alwin Arundel Lowdham

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Alwin Arundel Lowdham
Englishman
Afalstein - The Notion Club Papers.jpg
"The Notion Club Papers" by Afalstein
Biographical Information
Other namesArry
PositionLecturer in English Language
LocationOxford
AffiliationThe Notion Club
LanguageEnglish, Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic
Birth1938
Notable forWriter of comic of satirical verses
Family
ParentageEdwin Lowdham
Also implied to have been a descendant of Elendil
Physical Description
GenderMale
HeightTall
GalleryImages of Alwin Arundel Lowdham
"Well, I'm a philologist, which means a misunderstood man."
― Lowdham about himself in The Notion Club Papers, "Night 66"

Alwin Arundel Lowdham (born in 1938 and educated at B.N.C.,[note 1]), nicknamed "Arry", was a Man living in the 20th century England. He was a lecturer in English language and a member of the Notion Club, a literary discussion group based in Oxford.[1]

History[edit | edit source]

Early history[edit | edit source]

In 1947, when Arundel was nine years old, his father Edwin, along with three other sailors, went off in his ship Éarendel into the Atlantic and never returned. After he had left, the young Lowdham began to take interest in languages, especially Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic.[2]

The Notion Club[edit | edit source]

In 2012, Howard Green, a School Clerk, found a disordered bundle of papers on the top of one of a number of sacks of waste paper in the basement of the Examination Schools at Oxford. They were loosely tied with a red string and on the outer sheet was inscribed in large Lombardic capitals: NOTION CLUB PAPERS. Later, it was discovered that the papers reported approximately one hundred meetings of a certain discussion group. The meetings took place between c. 1980 and 1990, and Lowdham was one of its members.[1]

During those meetings, many of the members reported having strange dreams, in which it seemed to them that they traveled through space or time.[3][4]In several of such dreams, Lowdham managed to capture certain words and phrases of two unknown languages. As it turned out, it was a description of the Downfall of Númenor in both Quenya and Adûnaic.[4]

In the subsequent meetings, he began to receive not only aural, but also visual stimuli describing that event. During a meeting that took place on 12 June, 1987, labeled Night 67, a great storm hit England, and strange clouds in the shapes of eagles hovered above Oxford.[5] After that night, he and one of his fellow members, Wilfrid Trewin Jeremy, went missing and were only later heard from by a letter where it was found that they were on a journey across the country.[6]

Ælfwine and Tréowine[edit | edit source]

He and Jeremy returned to Oxford just one day before the next meeting, which took place on 25 September, 1987. At that meeting, Lowdham described a dream in which he went back to the Anglo-Saxon England, to Porlock. In that dream, he identified himself with a man named Ælfwine, and was bidden by the king Éadweard to sing before his throne. But instead of speaking what he had in mind for such an occasion, he commenced a song in which he put forth his love of the sea. At that, many of those in the hall who knew him well started laughing, not wanting any more of his songs concerning the sea. But the king's thegn Odda, reprimanded them. A while later, a man named Tréowine son of Céolwulf, who was identified with Jeremy, started reciting a poem, King Sheave, about the legendary Lombardic king.[7]

Around the year 915, in autumn, the Danes attacked Porlock. They were at first driven off and Ælfwine's company managed to capture a Danish cnearr at night. At dawn Ælfwine told to his closest friend, Tréowine, he intended to sail off westward, perhaps to the country of the legendary king Sheaf. Tréowine agreed to accompany him at least as far as to Ireland. They got two other companions: Ceola of Somerset and Geraint of West Wales.[8]

Many days after they passed Ireland the voyagers were exhausted. A "dreamlike death" seemed to come over them, and soon they passed out. The last that is known of the journey is that Tréowine saw the world plunge down under them, while sailing the Straight Road. Later, Ælfwine found himself stranded on the beaches of Tol Eressëa where the Elves told him the stories of Valinor and Beleriand, and Lowdham received also the visions of Númenor before and during its fall.[8]

At the end it is implied that Lowdham (as well as Ælfwine) was a descendant of Elendil himself, and that was the reason of his vivid dreams concerning Númenor and its downfall.[8] From Lowdham comes, also, the greatest source of the information on the Adûnaic language.[9]

Etymology[edit | edit source]

The name Alwin is a modernized version of the Old English name Ælfwine, and its meaning is "Elf-friend"[2] (which is also the meaning of the name Elendil). For Arundel see Eärendil#Names and Etymology.

Genealogy[edit | edit source]

Elendil
S.A. 3119 - 3441
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Oswin Lowdham
b. late 19th century
 
 
 
 
 
 
Edwin Lowdham
b. c. 1889
 
 
 
 
 
 
ALWIN ARUNDEL LOWDHAM
b. 1938
 


Inspiration[edit | edit source]

Hugo Dyson, a member of the Inklings, was alike to the character of Lowdham, in that he was loud and tended to make jokes at inappropriate times, but in other aspects he was the antithesis of Dyson, namely in his learning and interests.[10]

See Also[edit | edit source]

Notes

  1. Although The Notion Club Papers have dates on them which puts them mostly in the 1980s, the "Notes to the Second Edition" mentions the contradictory evidence in dating the manuscripts, and an alternative date is presented: they may have been written in the 1940s.

References

Members of the Notion Club
Michael George Ramer · Rupert Dolbear · Nicholas Guildford · Alwin Arundel Lowdham · Philip Frankley · Wilfrid Trewin Jeremy
James Jones · Abel Pitt · Colombo Arditi · Jonathan Markison · Gerard Manface · Ranulph Stainer · Alexander Cameron · John Jethro Rashbold