Bismarck Statue = The Argonauts.

[Juicy-Sweet]

A few years ago I spend a day in Hamburg - i was just walking around St. Pauli without a map, just checking out the city as I walked along.

I was in some park, and suddenly between the trees I saw a great pillar rise like a tower to meet me. A giant it seemed to me, a vast grey figure silent but threatening. Then I saw that it was indeed shaped and fashioned: the craft and power of old had wrought upon it, and still it preserved through the suns and rains of forgotten years the mighty likenesses in which it had been hewn. Upon a great pedestal founded on a hill stood a great Chancellor of stone: still with blurred eyes and crannied brows he frowned towards France. He was leaned upon a great sword. Great power and majesty they still wore, the silent warden of a longvanished Empire. Awe and fear fell upon me.

Indeed, in Hamburg someone constructed a 35 metres high granite statue of Bismarck, that instantly reminded me of the argonauts the Fellowshio sailed through. It was built in 1906. It's SO similar that I think Tolkien based the argonauts on this statue. The feel of it is exactly the same.

So does anyone know if he ever went to Hamburg? Barring that, he might have seen in in a newspaper or something in 1906 when it was erected.

If you happen to be in the vicinity I recommend Tolkien fans to pass by

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismarck_Monument_(Hamburg)

or google "hamburg bismarck monument"