Francis Xavier Morgan
Father Francis Xavier Morgan (January 18, 1857 - June 11, 1935) was a Roman Catholic priest at the Birmingham Oratory in Birmingham. He was half Welsh and half Anglo-Spanish.
He took care of Mabel Tolkien during her illness, and took over custody of Ronald and Hilary Tolkien after her death. Father Francis was a pipe-smoker and Tolkien derived his own custom from this.
Father Francis Xavier Morgan, forbade Tolkien to see Edith Bratt until he was twenty-one because he saw her as a distraction from his studies. With one exception, Tolkien obeyed this instruction to the letter while Father Morgan's guardianship lasted.
Tolkien named his first son, John Francis Reuel after him.[1]
In 2013, José Manuel Ferrández Bru published La Conexion Española de J.R.R. Tolkien, a Spanish-language biography about Francis Xavier Morgan.[2] The book was later translated into English.[3]
In Tolkien's works
In the Gnomish Lexicon, Tolkien translates the name "Francis" into Gnomish: Faidron or Faithron. These names are clearly related with other words of the same lexicon: fair ("free, unconstrained"), faidwen/faith ("liberty"), faithir ("liberator, Saviour").[4] The translation is based on etymology as the name Francis (from Italian Francesco) derives from the Franks, who in turn gave the word frank "free of servitude; candid, outspoken, unreserved".[5] Ferrández Bru considered that Tolkien honored Father Francis this way.[2]
Ferrández Bru suggests that Thingol was partly inspired from Father Francis, considering his opposition to the courtship of Beren to Luthien; with whom Tolkien identified himself and Edith.[2]
See also
- Letter to Father Francis Morgan (letter)
External links
- Father Francis Xavier Morgan (1935), by F. Philip Lynch; Birmingham Oratory
- Tolkien and the Oratory
- "The Morgan Family in London" by José Manuel Ferrández Bru
References
- ↑ Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, "III. 1917-1925: The making of a mythology", p. 97
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 José Manuel Ferrández Bru, "J.R.R. Tolkien's Spanish Connection", Author's website (accessed 20 May 2020)
- ↑ ""Uncle Curro". J.R.R. Tolkien's Spanish Connection", Luna Press Publishing (accessed 20 May 2020)
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Alphabet of Rúmil & Early Noldorin Fragments", in Parma Eldalamberon XIII (edited by Carl F. Hostetter, Christopher Gilson, Arden R. Smith, Patrick H. Wynne, and Bill Welden), p. 33
- ↑ Etymology of the name "Franks"