"The Devil's Coach Horses" is a

1925 Events January * January 1 ** The Syrian Federation is officially dissolved, the State of Aleppo and the State of Damascus having been replaced by the State of Syria. * January 3 – Benito Mussolini makes a pivotal speech in the Itali ...

essay by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...

(" devil's coach horse" is the common name of a particular kind of

rove beetle The rove beetles are a family (Staphylinidae) of beetles, primarily distinguished by their short elytra (wing covers) that typically leave more than half of their abdominal segments exposed. With roughly 63,000 species in thousands of genera, the ...

). Tolkien draws attention to the devil's steeds called ''eaueres'' in '' Hali Meidhad'', translated "boar" in the

Early English Text Society The Early English Text Society (EETS) is a text publication society founded in 1864 which is dedicated to the editing and publication of early English texts, especially those only available in manuscript. Most of its volumes contain editions of ...

edition of 1922, but in reference to the ''jumenta'' "yoked team, draught horse" of

Joel Joel or Yoel is a name meaning "Yahweh Is God" and may refer to: * Joel (given name), origin of the name including a list of people with the first name. * Joel (surname), a surname * Joel (footballer, born 1904), Joel de Oliveira Monteiro, Brazili ...

(), in the Vulgata Clementina ''computruerunt jumenta in stercore suo''http://www.latin-nerds.com/latin-vulgate-bible/Joel.php (the

Nova Vulgata The ''Nova Vulgata'' (complete title: ''Nova Vulgata Bibliorum Sacrorum Editio'', ; abr. ''NV''), also called the Neo-Vulgate, is the official Classical Latin translation of the original-language texts of the Bible published by the Holy See. It ...

has ''semina'' for Hebrew "grain"). Rather than from the Old English word for "boar", ''eofor'' (German ''Eber'') Tolkien derives the word from ''eafor'' "packhorse", from a verb ''aferian'' "transport", related to Middle English ''aver'' "draught-horse", a word surviving in northern dialects. The Proto-Germanic root ''*ab-'' "energy, vigour, labour" of the word is cognate to Latin ''opus''.

References

External links

* Full text o
"The Devil's Coach Horses"
at HathiTrust Digital Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Devil's Coach Horses Essays by J. R. R. Tolkien 1925 essays