伊藤 尽

I heard a sad piece of news tonight.

The Good Knight of the Fantasy World has passed away to another world.

Glen GoodKnight (1941-2010), the founder of Mythopoeic Society, deceased yester-day, 10th of November 2010.

I first met him when I visited Oxford in the summer of 1992, when the centernary conference of J. R. R. Tolkien was taking place there.

He told me how original and appreciable the illustrations in the Japanese translation of The Lord of the Rings by Ryuichi Terashima were.

Before the Centenary Edition of LOTR allowed Alan Lee to be the authorised illustrator of the works around the world, Terashima was the only illustrator whom J. R. R. Tolkien himself had admitted for his everlasting famed work.

Glen also suggested me to collect several rare translations of Tolkien's works, including the Russian version of The Two Towers, which I was honoured to lend for an exhibition of Tolkien's works at Keio University Library, Tokyo in 2002 when the movie was on show in Japan.

He is an active and energetic motivator for countless students of Tolkien and his fantasy around the world, both professional and amateur. His foundation of Mythopoeic Society in 1970 has produced one of the influential academic journals on fatasy, such as Mythlore, which is now published as a peer-reviewed academic journal of high quality.

Even if what he did in the late 60s and early 70s may have at first been regarded by general public as merely one of ethusiastic fan activities of Tolkien's, the fruits of various efforts and gentle characteristics of his nourished deliciously those who are interested in Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams now and in future.