4 ms·

As well as misplaced quotes, a lot or people like to identify connections between places that Tolkien lived in or visited and places in Middle Earth. Clearly, t

As well as misplaced quotes, a lot or people like to identify connections between places that Tolkien lived in or visited and places in Middle Earth. Clearly, there are likely inspirations, for example, young Tolkien's walking holiday in the Alps may have informed some of his descriptions of the Misty Mountains, and World War one battlefields may have inspired the Dead Marshes and Mordor. But did 'The Hollies' park in Leeds [0], where Tolkien was a professor, inspire Hollin, just outside the gates of Moria? Who can say? Incidentally, I have lived in two of the cities that Tolkien did: Leeds and Bournemouth. As a post grad at Leeds University, the small office (just east of the current Student Union building) that I shared for a while had reputedly been used by Tolkien long before I was born. We joked that it was the inspiration for the damp, dark, twisty caves of the goblins in the Hobbit. [Edit - just checked - Tolkien explicitly references his Swiss walking tour as an inspiration for parts of the Misty Mountains] [0] https://www.headingleyleeds.com/parks-hollies https://www.headingleyleeds.com/parks-hollies [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#Youth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#Youth

mech422 6y ago
What I find interesting is just how well the Lotro of the Rings Online (LoTRO) brought all this to life... 14 years later, the graphics are a bit dated, but still very pretty. Moria remains my all time favorite zone in an MMORPG. The atmosphere, the scale ... its just _is_ Moria. If you're a Tolkien fan, I highly recommend at least checking out some of the youtube videos - or even better, give the game a try (it has a free to play option).
p_l 6y ago
I'd love if someone fact checked whether the salt mine of Wieliczka was really the inspiration for Moria (the guides do imply so, based AFAIK on a visit by Tolkien there). It does seem to fall under the "likely inspiration" case (if you ever visit Wieliczka, you'll get it :D)
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  > salt mine of Wieliczka was really the inspiration for Moria (the guides do imply so, based AFAIK on a visit by Tolkien there) Hmmm. Not heard this one. That said, I've read quite a lot of Tolkien biographic material, and I'm not aware that he ever visited southern Poland before writing the Lord of the Rings. He wasn't particularly well travelled before he became famous, and as far as I know he had only visited South Africa (where he was born and left as a very young child), Switzerland (walking holiday) and France (WW1) before the bulk of the LOTR writing occurred. After 1939 a trip to Wieliczka would have involved him entering a WW2 war zone or crossing the Iron Curtain, something I'm certain he didn't do before LOTR was published in 1955.
  - p_l 6y ago
    The suggestion was that he visited it on a trip before WW1, possibly related to the Switzerland trip? And most importantly, it would be marked as Austro-Hungary territory at the time.
    - KineticLensman 6y ago
      > The suggestion was that he visited it on a trip before WW1, possibly related to the Switzerland trip? Again, I don't think so. I just re-read the relevant chapter in Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien. The 1911 Switzerland trip (when he was aged 19) was just that; and the group of 12 returned to England as soon as the walking was done.
      - p_l 6y ago
        I guess that it can be marked as untrue tale then. Pity, because it really would fit ;)
- randycupertino 6y ago
  Seeing the salt mines was one of my highlights of my trip to Poland! On my tour any Tolkien connection or inspiration wasn't mentioned, fwiw. Would love to go back when travel is reopened.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  I visited Wieliczka and some visual similarities are striking enough that the hypothesis that Wieliczka inspired at least the filmmakers of the series seems plausible to me. But there is AFAIK no record of JRRT himself visiting there and Poland would be a very untypical vacation destination of a British guy in the interwar period.
101008 6y ago
I may consider myself a Rowlingologist (because of JK Rowling), and it is a constant fight. A lot of places in the UK claim to have inspired JK Rowling, just because they are similar in the way they were portrayed in the films (which is very different from the books). There is also the case of Livreria Lello, in Porto, Portugal, who spent years claiming JK Rowling visited it and got inspired for Hogwarts (they seem to have a similar staircase). They even held a Harry Potter event with signed books (most of them fake, probably the bookshop didnt know it, but they didnt do their dilligence). Fortunatelly, Rowling denied knowing that place at all on Twitter [1], but as far as I know, the Livreria keeps telling its visitor about Rowling connection. The same happens in Edinburgh (JKR city for the last 30 years), where if you do a tour, the guide will try to make a Harry Potter connection on every corner. Which is not completely true. [1] https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1263377779338481665 https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1263377779338481665
- andrepd 6y ago
  It's a gorgeous bookshop, regardless. Maybe with less Potter tourism it will get a little less crowded ;)
  - schoen 6y ago
    When I went it was so busy that they required you to buy a ticket to get in, which was refunded if you then bought a book.
seany 6y ago
There's literally a place called the shire in Malawi. (been there, it's delightful)
- Talanes 6y ago
  There are a lot of Shires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire
  - deathlight 6y ago
    The word sheriff is etymologically connected to the word shire as well.
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
The Drakensberg in South Africa (yes, the name does translate as "Dragon Mountains") are sometimes cited as an inspiration to Tolkien. If this is accurate or not is another question, but a google of "Tolkien Drakensberg" certainly shows that it is widely known.
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  > The Drakensberg in South Africa ... are sometimes cited as an inspiration to Tolkien. Tolkien returned to England with his mother aged 3 and never went back. Tolkien himself claimed "to have few memories of South Africa, except for a vivid encounter with a large spider, an experience he put to good use later in his writing. The grave of his father, Arthur Tolkien, is still identifiable in Bloemfontein’s President Brand Cemetery" [0] So probably not a big influence, if any. [0] https://www.southafrica.net/gl/en/travel/article/jrr-tolkien-and-bloemfontein-the-famed-fantasy-author-spent-his-earliest-years-in-free-state-province https://www.southafrica.net/gl/en/travel/article/jrr-tolkien...

mech422 6y ago

What I find interesting is just how well the Lotro of the Rings Online (LoTRO) brought all this to life... 14 years later, the graphics are a bit dated, but still very pretty. Moria remains my all time favorite zone in an MMORPG. The atmosphere, the scale ... its just _is_ Moria. If you're a Tolkien fan, I highly recommend at least checking out some of the youtube videos - or even better, give the game a try (it has a free to play option).

p_l 6y ago

I'd love if someone fact checked whether the salt mine of Wieliczka was really the inspiration for Moria (the guides do imply so, based AFAIK on a visit by Tolkien there). It does seem to fall under the "likely inspiration" case (if you ever visit Wieliczka, you'll get it :D)

KineticLensman 6y ago
> salt mine of Wieliczka was really the inspiration for Moria (the guides do imply so, based AFAIK on a visit by Tolkien there) Hmmm. Not heard this one. That said, I've read quite a lot of Tolkien biographic material, and I'm not aware that he ever visited southern Poland before writing the Lord of the Rings. He wasn't particularly well travelled before he became famous, and as far as I know he had only visited South Africa (where he was born and left as a very young child), Switzerland (walking holiday) and France (WW1) before the bulk of the LOTR writing occurred. After 1939 a trip to Wieliczka would have involved him entering a WW2 war zone or crossing the Iron Curtain, something I'm certain he didn't do before LOTR was published in 1955.
- p_l 6y ago
  The suggestion was that he visited it on a trip before WW1, possibly related to the Switzerland trip? And most importantly, it would be marked as Austro-Hungary territory at the time.
  - KineticLensman 6y ago
    > The suggestion was that he visited it on a trip before WW1, possibly related to the Switzerland trip? Again, I don't think so. I just re-read the relevant chapter in Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien. The 1911 Switzerland trip (when he was aged 19) was just that; and the group of 12 returned to England as soon as the walking was done.
    - p_l 6y ago
      I guess that it can be marked as untrue tale then. Pity, because it really would fit ;)
randycupertino 6y ago
Seeing the salt mines was one of my highlights of my trip to Poland! On my tour any Tolkien connection or inspiration wasn't mentioned, fwiw. Would love to go back when travel is reopened.
inglor_cz 6y ago
I visited Wieliczka and some visual similarities are striking enough that the hypothesis that Wieliczka inspired at least the filmmakers of the series seems plausible to me. But there is AFAIK no record of JRRT himself visiting there and Poland would be a very untypical vacation destination of a British guy in the interwar period.

101008 6y ago

I may consider myself a Rowlingologist (because of JK Rowling), and it is a constant fight. A lot of places in the UK claim to have inspired JK Rowling, just because they are similar in the way they were portrayed in the films (which is very different from the books). There is also the case of Livreria Lello, in Porto, Portugal, who spent years claiming JK Rowling visited it and got inspired for Hogwarts (they seem to have a similar staircase). They even held a Harry Potter event with signed books (most of them fake, probably the bookshop didnt know it, but they didnt do their dilligence). Fortunatelly, Rowling denied knowing that place at all on Twitter [1], but as far as I know, the Livreria keeps telling its visitor about Rowling connection. The same happens in Edinburgh (JKR city for the last 30 years), where if you do a tour, the guide will try to make a Harry Potter connection on every corner. Which is not completely true. [1] https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1263377779338481665 https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1263377779338481665

andrepd 6y ago
It's a gorgeous bookshop, regardless. Maybe with less Potter tourism it will get a little less crowded ;)
- schoen 6y ago
  When I went it was so busy that they required you to buy a ticket to get in, which was refunded if you then bought a book.

seany 6y ago

There's literally a place called the shire in Malawi. (been there, it's delightful)

Talanes 6y ago
There are a lot of Shires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire
- deathlight 6y ago
  The word sheriff is etymologically connected to the word shire as well.

SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago

The Drakensberg in South Africa (yes, the name does translate as "Dragon Mountains") are sometimes cited as an inspiration to Tolkien. If this is accurate or not is another question, but a google of "Tolkien Drakensberg" certainly shows that it is widely known.

KineticLensman 6y ago
> The Drakensberg in South Africa ... are sometimes cited as an inspiration to Tolkien. Tolkien returned to England with his mother aged 3 and never went back. Tolkien himself claimed "to have few memories of South Africa, except for a vivid encounter with a large spider, an experience he put to good use later in his writing. The grave of his father, Arthur Tolkien, is still identifiable in Bloemfontein’s President Brand Cemetery" [0] So probably not a big influence, if any. [0] https://www.southafrica.net/gl/en/travel/article/jrr-tolkien-and-bloemfontein-the-famed-fantasy-author-spent-his-earliest-years-in-free-state-province https://www.southafrica.net/gl/en/travel/article/jrr-tolkien...