J.R.R. TOLKIEN INTRODUCED "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son" as "a piece plainly intended as a recitation for two persons, two shapes in 'dim shadow', with the help of a few gleams of light and appropriate noises and a chant at the end" in a footnote to "Ofermod," the brief essay on "excessive pride" that accompanied its original publication in Essays and Studies. Critics have given Tolkien's "Ofermod" essay considerably more attention than they have given his "recitation," but then Tolkien himself modestly added "It ["The Homecoming"] has of course, never been performed" to his "Ofermod" introductory note (19n1). Though Tolkien's "recitation" has rarely been performed (in his Descriptinve Bibliography, Wayne Hammond notes only a 1954 performance on BBC Radio and stage performances in London in 1975 and 1991 [303]), it seems to me to have strong "performance" possibilities--and I am using the word here in its performing arts sense--as one act play. It presents a search in the darkness of night for the body of a fallen leader in which the searchers progress by recognizing the bodies of the men who were most loyal to him. The interest of the drama, then, rests in part on the basic idea of the search. Does it involve danger for the searchers? Will they find clues that can aid them? Can they interpret those clues correctly? And Tolkien also achieves a sense of continuous conflict between the two searchers by allowing them to define themselves in terms of their strongly contrasting perspectives on the decision of Beorhtnoth, the fallen leader whose body they must find and bring home for proper burial, to allow the vikings who threatened his homeland to cross the Blackwater, or Panta River, a natural protective barrier.
