Found among some of J.R.R. Tolkien's old papers and manuscripts was a peculiar document, written in a language that is recognizable as Quenya, the High Elven language spoken in Valinor and the Blessed Realm. Apparently, Tolkien had translated The Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary into Quenya. Here's Tolkien's rendering of the Lord's Prayer:

Átarema i ëa han ëa, na aire esselya,
aranielya na tuluva, na care indómelya cemende tambe Erumande.
Ámen anta síra ilaurëa massamma,
Álame tulya úsahitenna mal áme etelehta ucullo.

The doxology that normally follows the Lord's Prayer is not present here. Tolkien's translation of the Ave Maria is as follows:

Aia María quanta Eruanno i Héru as elye,
aistana elye imíca n´si, ar aistana i yáve mónalyo Yésus.
Aire María Eruo ontaril á hyame r´men úcarindor s´ ar lúmesse ya firuvamme.

The text was found on an old piece of stationery from the time Tolkien was at Merton College, Oxford, hence it must date from some time prior to 1945, just before The Lord of the Rings saw publication. The prayers were written in a script roughly approximating ancient Anglo-Saxon, Tolkien apparently amusing himself by creating a document that had the look and feel of an ancient manuscript. Why he created this is unknown. It is unlikely that he used these to actually pray. While The Lord's Prayer has long had a tradition of being used as a representative text for displaying samples of another language, the fact that Tolkien made no effort to publish this forgotten manuscript makes it unlikely that that was his intent either. Perhaps he did it merely for his own amusement.


H.K. Fauskanger, "J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord's Prayer and Hail Mary in Quenya: Syntactical and Etymological Analysis." (from Ardalambion,

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