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Shire Portrait (3b)

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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24Hr Trench, Andrew Robertshaw, architecture, Birmingham, Brandywine, crop rotation, Diamond Jubilee, dugouts, Dunedain, feudal system, German lawn chairs, Hornblotton, Inns, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lavenham, manor, Marish, Medieval, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, Sarehole, Sarehole's mill, Somerset, Suffolk, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Tolkien, village, Western Front, WWI Trenches

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In this post, we’re continuing our series on the Shire. So far, we’ve looked at its government and organization (1), its economy (2), and its geography (3a). Now we want to look at Shire architecture.

Our initial inspiration for this was from a line in a letter from JRRT to Allen & Unwin, 12/12/55. Speaking of the Shire, he says: “It is in fact more or less a Warwickshire village about the period of the Diamond Jubilee… (Letters, 230)

The “Diamond Jubilee” was the 60th anniversary of the reign of Queen Victoria (she came to the throne in 1837–Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee just five years ago).

1vic.jpg

The Jubilee was a huge celebration, bringing in people from all over Britain’s empire, who converged on London in the summer of 1897.

2adiam2bdiam2cdiam

JRRT was born in 1892 and had been brought to England in 1895, for a visit which became permanent when his father died back in South Africa. He and his brother

3atolkandbro.jpg

lived with their mother for a time in the village of Sarehole, just south of the huge industrial city of Birmingham. Sarehole’s mill

3sareholemill.jpg

still stands. It has been said that this mill is the model for the one by The Water in The Hobbit, as drawn by JRRT.

4hob.jpg

Thus, when we think about Shire architecture, we can have a double picture:

  1. bits of description in JRRT’s works
  2. actual late Victorian rural villages of the sort in which Tolkien spent part of his childhood

If we begin with historical villages, there isn’t anything to see in the actual Sarehole, except for the mill, which, though built upon the site of a mill which can be dated to 1542, is a building from 1771, just before the industrial revolution, an event with which Tolkien certainly had problems. If we look at other such villages, however, we can get a general picture. Basing our image upon a schematic medieval village plan, we find a double line of houses strung out along a single road.

5medvil.JPG

Spreading back from the houses are the fields, as villages in this world were self-sustaining. You can see these in JRRT’s illustration of the mill and the Hill. You’ll notice that these are in strips. In the feudal world, they illustrated both the use of crop rotation (different plants in different fields, with some fields allowed to rest), plus fields of the lord of the manor, which the tenants were obliged to tend. In Tolkien’s Shire, as there is no feudal system, we presume the stripping is for rotation.

4hob

Missing, however, from Hobbiton, would be two features you can see in the medieval illustration: a manor house and a church.

In the feudalism mentioned above, this ideal village is part of the social/governmental system in which it is attached to the smallest unit of that system, the manor.

8feudal.jpg

As the chart explains, in the early medieval world, land was power and kings used their claim to control their lands (supposedly given to them by God) as a way to control the state in general.   They deeded certain sections of land to their nobles, in return for taxes and military service. Those nobles, in turn, deeded out land to lesser nobles, all the way down to individual knights, who might hold no more than one parcel, or manor, with its house, church, and village of freemen (literally, free men, who could own land but paid taxes to the lord for it), peasants (who were also free, but held no land), and serfs (who were landless as well as being the property of the local lord).

Although Tolkien once described the Shire as “granted as a fief” (Letters, 158) and “half republic half aristocracy” (Letters, 241), it is not a feudal property and therefore lacks those marks of that system, those manor houses.

As well, it is also missing churches, or, for that matter, any form of religious shrine. A real English medieval village, depending on its size and wealth, could have had a very modest building, such as this at Hornblotton, in Somerset.

9hornblotton.jpg

Or, if your village had become a prosperous town, like Lavenham, in Suffolk, you could even have a mini-cathedral. (Lavenham’s money had come from the international trade in woolen cloth.)

110lavenham.jpg

Although Tolkien insisted that there was a monotheistic underlay to Middle-earth in the Third Age, he also says of the folk of the Shire: “I do not think Hobbits practiced any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves).” (Letters, 193)

Without manors and churches, the Shire consists of private dwellings and inns. Inns seem to be like their parallels in our medieval world.

11medinn.jpg

And, of course, there are the inns of the Shire and the Prancing Pony in Bree.

12prancingpony.jpg

Private houses, including farms, however, fall into two categories: traditional hobbit (that is, built into hillsides) and what we might call outside-influence houses. As Tolkien says in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings:

“All Hobbits had originally lived in holes in the ground, or so they believed…Actually in the Shire of Bilbo’s days it was, as a rule, only the richest and the poorest Hobbits that maintained the old custom. The poorest went on living in burrows of the most primitive kind…while the well-to-do still constructed more luxurious versions of the simple diggings of old…in the hilly regions and the older villages, such as Hobbiton and Tuckborough, or in the chief township of the Shire, Michel Delving on the White Downs, there were now many houses of wood, brick, or stone…Hobbits had long accustomed to build sheds and workshops…

The habit of building farmhouses and barns was said to have begun among the inhabitants of the Marish down by the Brandywine.

It is probable that the craft of building, as many other crafts beside, was derived from the Dunedain. But the Hobbits may have learned it direct from the Elves… “

Our Tolkien illustration of The Hill

12hob.jpg

shows us both styles. In the background, burrows; in the foreground, outside-influence houses. The traditional style reminds us of something from US western history: the use of “dugouts” as (at least temporary) dwellings as settlers moved west across the plains.

13sodhouse.jpg

As fans of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books will remember, her family lived in one of these along the banks of Plum Creek in the 1870s.

14sod.jpg

15littlehouse.jpg

On a more sinister note, we’ve always wondered whether JRRT’s inspiration for hobbit holes may have come from his time on the Western Front, where, from late 1914, soldiers had burrowed into the earth to protect themselves from enemy attack and from the increasingly inclement weather. The shelters could be simply cutouts in the earth

15dugout.jpg

or very elaborate cottages. The Germans were especially admired for their creativity in building the more elaborate ones.

16gmandugout.jpg

We can’t mention the Great War and trenches without also mentioning the brilliant Andrew Robertshaw, the English military historian, who actually reconstructed sixty feet of a trench line in his backyard.

17androb.jpg

He shares his experience in doing this in his book, 24Hr Trench.

511PnAeovzL._SX342_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Continuing our medieval parallel, we imagine the outside-influence houses to look something like these:

medhouse1medhouse2

19medhousea.jpg

And, for outbuildings, there are a few surviving medieval barns, like this one:

19medbarn.jpg

whose roofs are often held up by the most beautiful woodwork, always reminding us of cathedrals, on the one hand, and sailing ships on the other.

20medbarn.JPG

Imagine that this is what Farmer Cotton’s farm might have looked like.

And, with this image, we conclude this posting. In our next, we’re going to move to the edge of the Shire, to discuss marches—geographical ones, that is.

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

CD

One More River (2)

28 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Heroes, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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Amon Hen, Anduin, Bilbo, Blondin, Bombur, Boromir, Brandywine, bridges, Bruinen, Bucklebury Ferry, Celebrant, Dwarves, Elrond, Elves, Enchanted river, Esgaroth, Fangorn, ferry, flight to the ford, Frodo, Gandalf, Gondorians, Hoarwell, Hobbiton, Isen, Khazad-dum, Niagara Falls, Nimrodel, Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Orcs, Prince Valiant, Rivendell, Rivers, Rohirrim, Sam, Tharbad, The Hobbit, The Long Lake, The Lord of the Rings, Theodred, Tolkien, Tom Bombadil, Weathertop, Withywindle, Wraiths

Welcome, dear readers, as always. In our last post, we had turned our attention to water-crossings in The Hobbit. In this, we want to continue our study with The Lord of the Rings.

We were first prompted to look at such crossings by something Boromir said, almost in passing:

“Four hundred leagues I reckoned it, and it took me many months, for I lost my horse at Tharbad, at the fording of the Greyflood.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 8, “Farewell to Lorien”)

Tharbad had once been famous for its elaborate defenses and bridge, but, symbolic of so much of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age, it had fallen into decay and was abandoned, the water of the Gwathlo, the Greyflood, spreading wide—an easy place to lose a horse—or a man.

And perhaps Boromir’s loss is also symbolic of the higher level of stress involved in crossing water in the later work. The most Bilbo and the dwarves had to deal with was a water of forgetfulness, whose effect wore off in a relatively short time. There is much worse to come.

The first crossing (after The Water in Hobbiton)

1hobbiton.jpg

has danger attached, but it’s a danger which pursues the hobbits at the Bucklebury ferry. Here, pursued by one—or more—wraiths,

2wraithatferry.jpg

they cross over by what is a kind of do-it-yourself ferry, where the ferry runs on a cable, which keeps it available and on course, while the passengers pole to add propulsion.

3cableferry.jpg

4ferry.jpg

There is a puzzle at their next crossing—because the hobbits don’t appear to have crossed at all! This is the River Withywindle, on whose bank the hobbits meet up with Old Man Willow (not as in the film, where he’s been pulled violently out of context and replanted, for no good reason we can see, in Fangorn’s forest).

5oldmanwillow.jpg

Until we began to study water-crossings, we had never really thought about what happens then. The hobbits come to the river, having become lost in the Old Forest. Pippin and Merry are swallowed by the tree. Tom Bombadil comes to the rescue: but how do they cross the Withywindle? We just couldn’t remember! So we went back to the text, saw Tom lead the four hobbits through the forest, where they almost lose him, then they hear: “Hop along, my little friends, up the Withywindle!” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 6, “The Old Forest”)

And so they never actually ford across or are ferried across. Instead, they walk up its course to Tom’s house, which seems to be near the source.

6withywindlemap.jpg

The next crossing is many miles away—over the Barrow Downs, through Bree, past Weathertop, to the Last Bridge, over the Hoarwell. Although Aragorn is anxious that the Wraiths will have gotten there before them, they pass safely and keep moving southwards, towards Rivendell, until, near the ford over the Bruinen, the Nazgul catch up with them at last.

7bruinen.jpg

There is a bridge, of course, at Khazad-Dum, although, as far as we can tell, there is no water even in the depths far below it.

8khazaddum.jpg

Escaping from Moria, the Fellowship reaches two streams in a row and, as far as we know, none of the prominent illustrators has given us pictures, either of the tributary Nimrodel or the main river, the Celebrant, so we provide a rather generic picture to offer a rather general idea.

9nimrodel.jpg

10nimrodel.jpg

The Nimrodel is shallow enough to wade across, but the Celebrant is wider and deeper and the Elves provide a rather iffy method of transport: a single line of rope to balance on, making us imagine something like the famous Blondin crossing Niagara Falls in 1859—well, a little!

11blondin.jpg

The next crossing is almost inadvertent, or, at least happens sooner than expected: the Fellowship has been paddling down the Anduin, but, putting in at Amon Hen, things go disastrously wrong. Boromir tries to take the Ring, the orcs appear, Boromir is mortally wounded, and Merry and Pippin are carried off (in our edition—the 50th Anniversary, One Volume Edition—this takes all of 12 pages—quite a narrative feat for JRRT!), before Frodo (and Sam) cross the river to the east and story begins its major split.

12samandfrodo.jpg

[We might insert here, although, in The Lord of the Rings, it’s only a footnote that at the crossing of the Isen, during this time, Theodred, son of Theoden, is killed.]

12aTTTIsenFord2.jpg

After this, there is only one more crossing of any significance, but it’s not by the main characters: rather, it’s by the orcs, who use boats to assault and capture west Osgiliath, which is the subject of one of our earlier postings.

13orcsosgiliath.png

To which we would add the return crossing, days later, of the Forlorn Hope of Gondor and Rohan, on their way to challenge Sauron (and to distract him from Frodo and Sam).

14marchonmordor.jpg

To finish up this posting, we provide a chart below (clearly now one of a series, after the earlier one on doorways and passages) of the water-crossings found in the two books.

Crossing Characters Outcome Source
Tharbad Boromir Loses horse The Lord of the Rings
The Water Bilbo Joins Dwarves The Hobbit
 An unnamed river Bilbo, Dwarves, and Gandalf Lose baggage The Hobbit
Rivendell Bilbo Dwarves, and Gandalf Helped by Elves The Hobbit
Anduin Bilbo, Dwarves, and Gandalf Transported by eagles The Hobbit
Enchanted River Bilbo and Dwarves Bombur drugged The Hobbit
Underground river Bilbo and Dwarves Using barrels, Bilbo and Dwarves escape The Hobbit
The Long Lake Bilbo and Dwarves Gain help from Esgaroth The Hobbit
The Brandywine (Bucklebury Ferry) Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin Escape Wraith The Lord of the Rings
Withywindle Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin Reach Tom Bombadil’s house (never actually cross river) The Lord of the Rings
The Bruinen Frodo and Wraiths Elrond causes river surge, Nazgul driven off The Lord of the Rings
Khazad-Dum Balrog and Gandalf Gandalf defeats Balrog, but falls down with him The Lord of the Rings
Nimrodel/

Celebrant

Fellowship and Elves Fellowship brought into Lorien The Lord of the Rings
Anduin Frodo and Sam Set out on journey to the east The Lord of the Rings
Isen Rohirrim and Orcs Rohirrim driven back, Theodred, son of Theoden, killed The Lord of the Rings
Anduin Gondorians vs Orcs Gondorians driven back from West Ogsiliath The Lord of the Rings

 

This is our last posting for the year 2016 and we close the year with thanks to all who follow our blog or simply stop in for a visit. In 2017, we plan to continue our Tolkien travels, sometimes employing the Sortes Tolkienses, as well as to use Tolkien’s world to visit others, beginning with a posting on “Famous Bridge Battles”, from Boromir and Faramir jumping off one to escape the orcs, to Napoleon at Arcola, and beyond. Here’s a taste…

15princeval.jpg

We also plan to explore other worlds and perhaps to add a review section for books and films we think you might enjoy.

In the meantime, thanks, as ever, for reading. Happy New Year!

MTCIDC

CD

ps

What sad and surprising news! Princess Leia is no more– but no– Princess Leia will always be with us, just like the Force.

_87060782_starwarsap3

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