In the 1950s, Tolkien made a series of translations of Catholic prayers into Quenya, including the Lord’s Prayer. The rendition of the latter was evidently of importance to him since he wrote no less than six versions. All were published and commented in Vinyar Tengwar n° 43. We here give the final version (“Átaremma VI”), edited for the punctuation.

Facing it is the corresponding part of the traditional English version from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, still used by the Catholic Church – with the final doxology not included, but used afterwards as a liturgical element during the Mass. This must have been the version familiar to Tolkien.

This Quenya translation is remarkable in its expression of heaven. In earlier drafts, Tolkien used menel, the usual Quenya word for the sky; but finally, he preferred alternative renderings. In the first line, i ëa han ëa reads literally “who art beyond the Universe” or alternatively “who art beyond being” – this because in Quenya, ëa “to be” is also used as a name for the Universe, in reference to the creation word of the One God Eru Ilúvatar. In the fifth line, Erumande “in Heaven” contains, in the locative case, the name Eruman which could be translated “the blessed dwelling of God”. All of this points towards the willingness of Tolkien to distinguish in Quenya the physical sky and the metaphysical heaven, in accordance with modern Christian theology.

Otherwise the Quenya meaning is quite close to the English one. In particular, the word úcare used in the fifth petition refers to bad deeds, trespasses, according to the tradition arisen from the gospel of Luke - whereas other versions following the text of the gospel of Matthew use wordings like “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors”.

The text is transcribed in tengwar or “letters of Fëanor” according to the classical mode for Quenya described by Tolkien in the Appendix E to The Lord of the Rings and used for instance by the Namarië manuscript in The Road Goes Ever On p. 65. We made use of Johan Winge’s typeface Tengwar Annatar.  Open this mode in Glaemscribe