Songs for the Philologists is reputed to be one of the rarest items in the list of books authored or co-authored by J. R. R. Tolkien. The events preceding its publication are worth noting: while a professor at Leeds, Tolkien and E. V. Gordon founded a Viking Club, where undergraduates and tutors drank beer and read Old Norse sagas. The songs that members of the club used to sing at their meetings were available in a few typewritten copies. In 1936 A. H. Smith, who had been a student at Leeds and had a copy of the Songs, used it for a printing exercise with the students of the University College London. Since the publication was not authorized by Tolkien and Gordon, the printed booklets have never been distributed. Most of them perished in a fire, and only about 14 copies are extant. One of them is offered for sale at US$ 74,300. Beside the texts in English and Old English contributed by Tolkien, as well as a few compositions in Gothic and Latin, the book contains twelve songs in Icelandic that were sung by Leeds philologists. It was interesting to investigate what kind of texts the co-founders of the Viking Club included into this collection. Just added an article concerning this matter: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Songs for the Philologists: Icelandic Material.
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