It seems that J.R.R. Tolkien contributed two poems to a school magazine in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, back when he was an professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.
The First is an early version of a poem that later appeared in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, while the other is a Christmas poem, set in a landscape not unlike Middle Earth.
The discovery was made when the US Tolkien scholar Wayne Hammond . The Guardian has a full run down of how this came about and a few quotes.
The school is now planning to show the poems at an exhibition about its history.
Stephen Oliver Headteacher says:
“Both poems are very atmospheric and imbued with an air of mystery. I was very moved when I first read them,”
Loading ...
This is actually quite an old story, and one of the poems, The Shadow Man has already been published in the pocket edition of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, along with the later version of the poem the Shadow-Bride. Noel has not been published to date apart from in this magazine.
Well all other news sites are reporting this as brand new news.. so I did as well.
You were not the only one to be taken in 🙁
The Tolkien scholar David Bratman has published a blog article on the Tolkien Society website addressing the more general issue.
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/blog/2016/02/so-thats-where-our-copy-was-hiding/
Forget to add that if you are interested in this item, you can read more about its discovery here, https://wayneandchristina.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/tolkien-notes-8/