Letter 300

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Letter 300
Recipient	Walter Hooper
Date	20 February 1968
Subject(s)	Seeing dragons

Letter 300 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary

In C.S. Lewis's Rehabilitations and Other Essays there was a short poem in which Tolkien and Lewis, while discussing dragons, heard a workman in the bar claimed to have seen dragons himself. About the poem, Tolkien said that Jack had produced lines that were not entirely accurate examples of Old English metrical devices. The occasion was fictitious, Tolkien never having seen a dragon or any man who said he had. Tolkien recalled Jack telling him a story about F.E. Brightman, an ecclesiastical scholar. One night there was a discussion in the Common Room about dragons and Brightman said, "I have seen a dragon." "Where was that?" "On the Mount of Olives", Brightman replied, never explaining then or later what he meant.