'TO LUCY BARFIELD My Dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis' The Dedication to 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by Clive Staples Lewis, born #OTD 29 November 1898.

This is from Tolkien's early poem 'Kortirion among the Trees', written in autumn 1915. There's a nod to the Old English Menologium in Winter's icy spears marching 'upon the sun of bright All-Hallows' - but the image of falling leaves as birds' wings taking flight is all Tolkien.