Before long the Via Maxima was packed with an unceasing stream of Motores crawling so slowly from halt to halt that a man could (like an animal) walk its whole length and back to find a ‘mounted’ friend only 10 yards further on his way, while the horn of his Motor trumpeted in vexation.
The End of Bovadium (author's title)[2] or The Bovadium Fragments is a short story by J.R.R. Tolkien written between mid 1957[3] and early 1960.[4] According to Richard Ovenden, the Bodleian Library's librarian, The Bovadium Fragments "is about a scholar in the future looking at evidence of a society that is now lost" due to worshipping automobiles.[5] John Garth describes The Bovadium Fragments as "a satire on modernity, without adventures", taking place in "a post-apocalyptic future when civilisation as we know it has collapsed" because of cars.[6]
Synopsis
Foreword
The story begins with a Foreword by Doctor Sarevelk discussing "a site of historical"[3] importance "found at Vasti"[3] "on the borders of the Southern Region",[7] and two" "equally dead and obscure"[6] languages that are referred to as "A and B".[3] While Language B has been "almost entirely deciphered" at the time of the story using "the Rotzopny–Dwarf treatment", language A is not. In the second part of the Foreword, Dr. Gums summarizes the three fragments of the story proper and explains his method of translating them in a smug way.[7]
Fragment I
The first of the three fragments discussed is "a chronicle or legend in language A"[7] which Fragment II, according to Dr. Gums,[7] is a translation of.[8]
Fragment II
The second of the three fragments discussed is a translation and expanded version of Fragment I,[9] describing the takeover of Bovadium by the Motores.[3]
Fragment III
The third of the three fragments discussed is a text in Language B with inserts from language A that describes the aftermath of the end of Bovadium.[10]
Postscript by the Editor
The story concludes with a fictitious Postscript by Dr. Gums.[11]
Other Texts of Fragment II
Following the story, Christopher Tolkien describes two additional texts of Fragment II both entitled Domine defende nos contra hos Motores bos!. The first is a poem "in thirty-one octosyllabic couplets"[3] while the second is a Latin text which Christopher Tolkien translated.[12]
Background
Sometime between mid 1957[3] and early 1960,[13] Tolkien wrote a short[13] "satire"[14] entitled The End of Bovadium[2] or The Bovadium Fragments.[15] Tolkien initially wrote it "for his own amusement" as "a private academic jest" to gently satirize "pomposities of archaeologists" and the "hideousness of college crockery", being inspired by A.D. Godley's Motor Bus comic poem and a "recrudescence of the debate about Oxford roads".[16]
On 25 October 1960, Tolkien sought (through his secretary Elisabeth Lumsden) to publish what is believed to be this writing (since it was described as "a sort of satirical fantasy") in the magazine Time and Tide.[note 1][13] In a letter to Joan Anne Tolkien in November 1961, Tolkien mentioned the suffering of Oxford "from the ravages of the machine-worshippers".[17] On 24 August 1966, Tolkien lent Rayner Unwin the manuscript,[18] who wrote to Tolkien already the next day, thinking that he "should publish it in the Oxford Magazine".[19] Later, around the same time,[16] Clyde S. Kilby was also given a copy, being asked if the piece was worthy of publication.[14][18]
On or before 29 November 1968, The End of Bovadium[2] was included in a list of unpublished works that Tolkien had his secretary, Joy Hill, compile.[20] In a letter to Rayner Unwin on 2 December, Tolkien commented that, though The End of Bovadium was on the list of unpublished works, he had "no intention of publishing" it to keep it from preventing him from working on his "proper work".[2]
After Tolkien's death in 1973, Clyde S. Kilby would later recall the story in April 1976:
Though the reading of The Silmarillon was proving about as much as I could handle during that summer of 1966, Tolkien from time to time handed me other shorter pieces and asked me about their publishability. One was called “The Bovadium Fragments,” a satire written long before and having as its main point the worship of the Motores, i.e., automobiles, and the traffic jams blocking the roads in and around Oxford. It was full of the inventiveness to be expected of Tolkien. Some of the characters are Rotzopny, Dr. Gums, and Sarevelk. I judged that it had two elements that would make it unpublishable. One was the more than liberal use of Latin, and the other the probability that a reader's eye would focus on its playfulness rather than its serious implications. Actually it was an early comment on the commercialization of our world.[14]
A few more details about the contents were provided in Humphrey Carpenter's summary dating from 1977, saying that:
‘The Bovadium Fragments’ (perhaps composed early in the nineteen-sixties) is a parable of the destruction of Oxford (Bovadium) by the motores manufactured by the Daemon of Vaccipratum (a reference to Lord Nuffield and his motor-works at Cowley) which blocks the streets, asphyxiate the inhabitants, and finally explode.[15]
Carpenter also notes that the theme of "motor transport" connects the story to Mr. Bliss.[15] In a footnote to Letter 181 in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Carpenter speculated that Tolkien's statement that "the present design of destroying Oxford in order to accommodate motor-cars"[21] is "a reference to the proposal for a ‘relief’ road through Christ Church Meadow".[22] The writing was given to the Bodleian Library by The Tolkien Trust in 1985,[23] where it was kept in the Department of Western Manuscripts (Mss. Tolkien, Series A, folder A62, pages 38–91).[24] It is likely that the manuscript consists of 53 pages.[25] The manuscript was reassigned in 2003 from "MS Tolkien A 62"[26] to "MS. Tolkien B 62" alongside Sellic Spell, The New Shadow, and other notes, thereby making it not available for research.[23] In 1992, The Bovadium Fragments was mentioned in Judith Priestman's J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend in the entry about Tolkien's copy of A.D. Godley's Motor Bus poem.[27] Tolkien kept "the poem with his typescript of"[3] The End of Bovadium[2].[28] On 8 September of 2010, John D. Rateliff stated on his blog that its "a pity" Tolkien decided "against publishing" The Bovadium Fragments "since an anti-car environmental message from Tolkien published in the mid-sixties might have done some good".[29]
Around 3 May of 2025, it was announced that The End of Bovadium[2] would be published as part of The Bovadium Fragments: together with The Origin of Bovadium on 9 October.[30] On 9 May, David Bratman compared Humphrey Carpenter's description of the story to The Motor-cyclists,[31] one of Tolkien's poems.[32] On 24 May, John Garth explained in a blog post that Vaccipratum is a Latin name meaning "cow-meadow" and that Bovadium is a Latinized name Tolkien coined for Oxford.[33] On 26 May, Jason Fisher claimed on his blog that the book isn’t likely to feel thin like some of the other "posthumous publications", but rather like "Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major, Roverandom, and Mr. Bliss".[34] On 27 May, Ronald Kyrmse noted in a comment to Fisher's blog post that the names Rotzopny, Dr. Gums, and Sarevelk could be read backwards as impostor, smug, and cleverass respectively.[35] On 30 May, the story was described by Chris Smith, HarperCollins's Tolkien Publishing Director,[36] as:[5]
a sharply satirical account of the perils of allowing car production and machine-worship to take over your town, where things ultimately all go to hell, in a very literal sense.[5]
On 27 June, Shaun Gunner noted in an article on the website of The Tolkien Society that The End of Bovadium[2] is "Tolkien’s comment on industrialisation and environmental concerns" and is similar but different compared to Mr. Bliss.[36] On 21 July, Nancy Steinman stated in an article on TheOneRing.net that The End of Bovadium[2] reflected "Tolkien’s disdain of industrialism", comparing the story to "The Scouring of the Shire" chapter in The Lord of the Rings.[37] On 3 October, Sam Leith wrote a harsh criticism of the 2025 book on the website of "The Telegraph".[1] In another review, John Garth described "the vision of dead motorists reaching the River Styx and encountering the stygian ferryman Charon" with a "motor boat" was "particularly enjoyable".[6]
External links
- John Garth, "‘Mounted on the monster’: Tolkien and the motor-car", archived from the original at John Garth on Tolkien's life and works, on 11 October 2025. Retrieved 11 October 2025
Notes
- ↑ Tolkien had earlier published his poem Imram in the magazine Time and Tide (3 December 1955). Cf. J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), Sauron Defeated, "Part Two: The Notion Club Papers", p. 296.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sam Leith, "The endless ‘unearthing’ of Tolkien’s archive needs to stop", archived from the original at Telegraph, on 3 October 2025. Retrieved 4 October 2025 (second source)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Letter to Rayner Unwin (2 December 1968), quoted in Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: I. Chronology, p. 737 (entry "2 December 1968")
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Urulókë, onthetrail, Trotter, and Mr. Underhill, "The Bovadium Fragments: TolkienGuide review" 3 October 2025, Tolkien Collector's Guide, accessed 4 October 2025
- ↑ Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: II. Reader's Guide, "Environment", pp. 255-6 ("The Machine")
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Dalya Alberge, "Morris Motors boss may have inspired Tolkien villain", archived from the original at Telegraph, on 20 July 2025. Retrieved 30 May 2025
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 John Garth, "Lord of the ring road — JRR Tolkien’s war against the motor car", archived from the original at The Sunday Times, on 5 October 2025. Retrieved 4 October 2025
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Bovadium Fragments: together with The Origin of Bovadium, "THE BOVADIUM FRAGMENTS", "Foreword by Doctor Sarevelk"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Bovadium Fragments: together with The Origin of Bovadium, "THE BOVADIUM FRAGMENTS", "Fragment I"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Bovadium Fragments: together with The Origin of Bovadium, "THE BOVADIUM FRAGMENTS", "Fragment II"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Bovadium Fragments: together with The Origin of Bovadium, "THE BOVADIUM FRAGMENTS", "Fragment III"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Bovadium Fragments: together with The Origin of Bovadium, "THE BOVADIUM FRAGMENTS", "Postscript by the Editor"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Bovadium Fragments: together with The Origin of Bovadium, "THE BOVADIUM FRAGMENTS", "Other Texts of Fragment II"
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: I. Chronology, p. 563 (entry "25 October 1960")
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Clyde S. Kilby, Tolkien & The Silmarillion, II. "Summer with Tolkien", "Some Notes on “Smith of Wootton Major”", p. 36
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, "IV. 1925-1949(i): 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit'", Chapter VI: The Storyteller, p. 163 (footnote)
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien (ed.), The Bovadium Fragments: together with The Origin of Bovadium, "Publisher's Note" by Chris Smith
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded edition, Letter 231a, p. 438
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: I. Chronology, p. 673 (entry "24 August 1966")
- ↑ Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: I. Chronology, p. 673 (entry "25 August 1966")
- ↑ Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: I. Chronology, p. 736 (entry "29 November 1968")
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 181, (undated, written January or February 1956), pp. 232-7
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 181, (undated, written January or February 1956), "Notes", 181, p. 446 (note 2)
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 onthetrail, "The Bovadium Fragments: Together with ‘The Origin of Bovadium’ by Richard Ovenden O.B." 11 September 2025, Tolkien Collector's Guide, accessed 2 October 2025
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, John D. Rateliff (ed.), The History of The Hobbit, Mr. Baggins, The Second Phase, "Lake Town", Endnotes, p. 462 (footnote to Endnote 11)
- ↑ Sosryko, "La Machine ou la nécessité de raser le monde réel (French)", archived from the original at JRRVF - Tolkien en Version Française - Les nouveautés sur le site, l’actualité tolkienienne sur le Web, on 30 April 2025. Retrieved 5 May 2011
- ↑ Oronzo Cilli, Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist - Second Edition Revised and Expanded, "Bibliography", "Tolkien Papers (Bodleian Library, Oxford)"
- ↑ Judith Priestman, J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend, "Last Years", p. 86 (entry for "248 A.D. Godley's ‘Motor Bus’")
- ↑ Oronzo Cilli, Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist - Second Edition Revised and Expanded, "Section A - Primary Sources", p. 107 (item 775)
- ↑ John D. Rateliff, "Tolkien on Cars", archived from the original at Sac, on 23 August 2025. Retrieved 30 June 2025
- ↑ Trotter, "The Bovadium Fragments: Together with ‘The Origin of Bovadium’", archived from the original at Guide, on 14 May 2025. Retrieved 4 May 2025
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Christina Scull, Wayne G. Hammond (eds.), The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, "63. The Motor-cyclists (?1919)", pp. 446-8
- ↑ David Bratman, "a Tolkienian miscellany", archived from the original at Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB, on 22 May 2025. Retrieved 22 September 2025
- ↑ John Garth, "Tolkien’s road goes on – but there’s traffic ahead at Bovadium", archived from the original at John Garth on Tolkien's life and works, on 2 October 2025. Retrieved 30 June 2025
- ↑ Jason Fisher, "First mention of The Bovadium Fragments", archived from the original at Lingwe, on 23 June 2025. Retrieved 30 June 2025
- ↑ Ronald Kyrmse, "5/27/2025 8:15 AM" comment]" 27 May 2025, Lingwë - Musings of a Fish, accessed 30 June 2025
- ↑ 36.0 36.1 Shaun Gunner, "New Tolkien book – The Bovadium Fragments – is satire on industrialisation" 27 June 2025, The Tolkien Society, accessed 3 July 2025
- ↑ Nancy "Mithril" Steinman, "“The Bovadium Fragments”–New Tolkien Book release later this year", archived from the original at TORN, on 5 October 2025. Retrieved 27 September 2025