Finding the Cottage of Lost Play

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by HoME I: The Cottage of Lost Play

Now Eriol was coming from the south and a straight road ran before him bordered at one side with a great wall of grey stone topped with many flowers, or in places overhung with great dark yews. Though them as he climbed the road he could see the first stars shine forth, even as he afterwards sang in the song which he made to that fair city.

Now was he at the summit of the hill amidst its houses, and stepping as if by chance he turned aside down a winding lane, till, a little down the western slope of the hill, his eye was arrested by a tiny dwelling whose many small windows were curtained snugly, yet only so that a most warm and delicious light, as of hearts content within, looked forth.

So the reader is introduced to the Cottage of Lost Play, where Eriol hears the tales of the Elder Days that make up the Book of Lost Tales. What's interesting about the very early Legendarium is that Tol Eressea is England - the whole island eventually comes over and gets invaded by Saxons. A later setting, Tavrobel, can be pinpointed exactly in Great Haywood, a little north of Birmingham. So when Tolkien wrote Kortirion among the Trees about the city of Warwick, he wasn't just drawing an analogy between the two cities: he was saying the city Eriol enters from the south is Warwick.

You see where I'm going with this.

Tolkien gives a fairly precise description of Eriol's entry to Kortirion: he passes through a land of elms, then follows the road from the south described above up to the summit of the hill, then takes a winding road down the western slopes to the cottage. If Tolkien is being as precise as he later was with Tavrobel, can the original Cottage be found on the map?

There are two roads running into Warwick from the south: the Banbury Road in the south-east, and the Stratford Road in the south-west. The Banbury Road is arguably straighter, but more significantly, the steepest part of the road runs right next to a high stone wall, topped with flowers, over which at least one yew-tree can be seen.

It makes sense that Eriol would come from the east - he arrived on Eressea by ship, after all! For bonus points, coming this close against the castle wall means Eriol doesn't get a very good view of Warwick Castle close up - which explains why, at the start of BoLT 1: The Chaining of Melko, he needs a guide to find the approach to the Tower which is modelled on the castle.

Particularly in maps from Tolkien's day (I'm not sure if this is available outside the UK), Castle Hill really does bring you very suddenly into the middle of the houses of Warwick. The hill gets gentler but continues to climb, up along The Butts, and reaches its summit somewhere around the end of Northgate Street. Here Eriol "stepped as if by chance" down a winding lane.

The western road down from the hilltop was the Saltisford road, and is now the A425; it hardly screams "winding lane". Running vaguely north-west, however, is Cape Road - which on the old maps doesn't even have a name, has a big bend in it which qualifies it as "winding", and is flanked by a bank of trees. It's definitely the most lane-like road running from that spot (and the only one that, back then, didn't stay right in urban Warwick).

So where does this lane go? Um... kind of nowhere! On the old maps, it passes a couple of terraces, and then wanders off over the railway towards a prison. Certainly there's no picturesque cottages "a little down the western slope".

On a hunch, I went looking for Edith Bratt's house in Warwick. She was the only reason Tolkien was interested in the city, after all. It took a bit, but I turned up this article which gives her address as 15 Victoria Street. Where is that, exactly?

Well, wouldn't you know it: it's one of those two terraces Cape Road runs past the end of.

Can the Cottage of Lost Play really be an Edwardian terraced house? Well...

Originally Posted by HoME I: The Cottage of Lost Play

...his eye was arrested by a tiny dwelling whose many small windows were curtained snugly, yet only so that a most warm and delicious light, as of hearts content within, looked forth.

Originally Posted by "Carpenter Biography: Reunion

Ronald might address Edith as 'little one' (his favourite name for her', and talk lovingly of her 'little house'...

I think it might be, actually. ^_^

Eriol's entry into Kortirion and arrival at the Cottage of Lost Play, on the 1903 OS map:



hS

[Priya]

Splendid theory! Well done!

Matches well with Letter #181 (from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981) where after talking about his youth in being brought up in (Sarehole) a semi-rural village in Warwickshire, Tolkien adds:

“I take my models like anyone else - from such ‘life’ as I know.”

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Priya

Splendid theory! Well done!

Matches well with Letter #181 (from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981) where after talking about his youth in being brought up in (Sarehole) a semi-rural village in Warwickshire, Tolkien adds:

“I take my models like anyone else - from such ‘life’ as I know.”

Having driven across the Barrow-Downs and seen exactly how hard it is to figure out where you are or which way you're going, he definitely did!

While I had BoLT out anyway, I went through and put all the Eressea locations on a map:

The Lonely Isle

The saddest thing about all this is reading over and over again Tolkien waxing lyrical about the elms of Warwick. Those are all gone now, victims of the Dutch Elm Disease that arrived in the 1970s. I rather hope Tolkien didn't live long enough to see the elms of Kortirion felled.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Having driven across the Barrow-Downs and seen exactly how hard it is to figure out where you are or which way you're going, he definitely did!

While I had BoLT out anyway, I went through and put all the Eressea locations on a map:

The Lonely Isle

Cool map! There are some other locations missing however - this category on TG (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Cate...l_Eress%C3%ABa ) lists some more obscure ones such as Estirin (Exeter), Tol Withernon (possibly Withernsea) and Fladweth Amrod (possibly Gipsy Green near Penkridge).


I also wonder if you think the geography of Tol Eressea was changed once Tolkien decided to make it a separate island from Britain in c. 1919/1920? Because, while 5th century Ottor was changed to 10th/11th century Aelfwine, the characters and locations on Eressea remained largely unchanged until Tolkien abandoned the BoLT altogether.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

Cool map! There are some other locations missing however - this category on TG (https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Cate...l_Eress%C3%ABa ) lists some more obscure ones such as Estirin (Exeter), Tol Withernon (possibly Withernsea) and Fladweth Amrod (possibly Gipsy Green near Penkridge).

I've inserted these, along with Falasse Numea (entered loosely as the Irish west coast). On the back of about an hour's research, I think the Withernsea and Gypsy Green identifications are solid.

Given that Tolkien studied at Exeter College in Oxford, it really feels like he just wanted to be able to refer to wherever he happened to be with an Elvish name.

Originally Posted by Arvegil145

I also wonder if you think the geography of Tol Eressea was changed once Tolkien decided to make it a separate island from Britain in c. 1919/1920? Because, while 5th century Ottor was changed to 10th/11th century Aelfwine, the characters and locations on Eressea remained largely unchanged until Tolkien abandoned the BoLT altogether.

I think by the time Avallone showed up, the geography of Eressea no longer existed: it was an "otherworld", not somewhere you could actually visit. I also feel like it got much smaller: "we can see the tower of Avallone from the Meneltarma" becomes less impressive when you have to add "and a landmass stretching along the entire western horizon".

But during the Aelfwine phase... I think Tolkien found himself in a dilemma. On the one hand, he repeatedly references the Eriol geography as the geography of England - in the Aelfwine II narrative text, he is a man of Mindon Gwar = Kortirion, and his book is still the Golden Book of Tavrobel, laid in the House of a Hundred Chimneys beside the Pine of Belawryn in England. On the other hand, if I'm reading CT's notes right, the names Kortirion and Tavrobel are also used of locations in Eressea.

Ultimately, I think the answer is that the Aelfwine Lost Tales were never developed enough for it to matter. Tolkien continued to use the Eriol geography for both sides of the Great Sea; if he had written further, he would probably have modified the Eressea side, but he didn't get that far.

I've deliberately not used places from the Aelfwine texts: the map doesn't show Evadrien/Coast of Iron/Lionesse, or Belerion, or Rum/Magbar. They don't fit into the Eriol geography, even though I could pinpoint them pretty well. The Lexicons and the heraldic symbols are all Eriol-period, though, so I'm happy to use them.

hS

[Arvegil145]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I think by the time Avallone showed up, the geography of Eressea no longer existed: it was an "otherworld", not somewhere you could actually visit. I also feel like it got much smaller: "we can see the tower of Avallone from the Meneltarma" becomes less impressive when you have to add "and a landmass stretching along the entire western horizon".

Yeah, I didn't mean that late version. (Even so, Tavrobel and Cortirion on Eressea are still mentioned in the post-LOTR legendarium.)

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

But during the Aelfwine phase... I think Tolkien found himself in a dilemma. On the one hand, he repeatedly references the Eriol geography as the geography of England - in the Aelfwine II narrative text, he is a man of Mindon Gwar = Kortirion, and his book is still the Golden Book of Tavrobel, laid in the House of a Hundred Chimneys beside the Pine of Belawryn in England. On the other hand, if I'm reading CT's notes right, the names Kortirion and Tavrobel are also used of locations in Eressea.

Ultimately, I think the answer is that the Aelfwine Lost Tales were never developed enough for it to matter. Tolkien continued to use the Eriol geography for both sides of the Great Sea; if he had written further, he would probably have modified the Eressea side, but he didn't get that far.

I've deliberately not used places from the Aelfwine texts: the map doesn't show Evadrien/Coast of Iron/Lionesse, or Belerion, or Rum/Magbar. They don't fit into the Eriol geography, even though I could pinpoint them pretty well. The Lexicons and the heraldic symbols are all Eriol-period, though, so I'm happy to use them.

I think the Ottor > Aelfwine narrative switch is one of the more abrupt and confusing elements of the legendarium, so to make it as clear as I can:

1) Once Tolkien switched Ottor for Aelfwine, he also disassociated Britain with Tol Eressea (i.e. they were no longer the same thing)

2) He made the British Isles a remnant of (proto)-Beleriand after the (not yet so named) 'War of Wrath' - after that war many of the remaining Elves who didn't move to Eressea settled on that island remnant (called Luthany/Luthien) and started making a civilization of their own

3) Meanwhile, Eressea (now a completely separate island near Valinor) over the centuries started to get more and more flooded with the Elven refugees from Luthany (i.e. Britain) who eventually made cities and towns on Eressea in the likeness of the cities and towns in Luthany

4) In other words, there were two Kortirions/Tavrobels/etc. - there was Kortirion the Old (i.e. future Warwick, and the original Kortirion) on Luthany: and then, many centuries later, the Elves escaping Luthany (Britain) due to gradual influx of Men, Orcs, etc. built Kortirion the New on Eressea (in a similar fashion in which Gondolin was made as an image of Tirion)

5) Aelfwine eventually travelled from Britain (Luthany) to Eressea, and the cities there were the reconstructions of those cities in the Elves' ancient home from which Aelfwine came from

6) (Second) Faring Forth has now been recontextualized as the Elves of Eressea returning to Luthany and reclaiming it (which was also supposed to be a disaster), with the First Faring Forth being equivalent to the 'War of Wrath' - at least in some outlines

[Huinesoron]

Wandering further from BoLT, but so much the same process that I can't justify making a separate thread for it, I've been trying to pin down some of the other real-world locations that Tolkien dropped intact into the Legendarium.

The hemlock-glade, where Edith danced for Tolkien and Luthien for Beren, is in Roos, specifically Dents Garth. In the comments of this post, someone raises the next-best alternate, and has the issues with it nicely pointed out. There's also confirmation from a local that the missing elm-trees in the first link were indeed there until the '70s! Not much else to say about this, except to note that the church is CofE rather than Catholic, so not one Tolkien would have attended.

Next up we're off to Sarehole/Hobbiton. It's well-known that Sarehole Mill became the Old Mill of Hobbiton, with the "White Ogre" of the miller's son becoming Sandyman. What I haven't seen suggested before is that the farm shown opposite the mill on Tolkien's painting of The Hill looks to be Sarehole Farm:



Check out the courtyard shape, shown on the map and kind of visible on the photo; there's no other farms in the area with that shape. (Note also that Tolkien's childhood Sarehole house was apparently one of those just at the top-left of the map.)

I haven't been able to find a good candidate for The Hill itself, showing just how careful you need to be when saying somewhere "is" a Legendarium location - Tolkien mixed and matched, of course he did!

Third, and finally (at least for now), apparently David Salo was the one who speculated that the Lauterbrunnen valley in Switzerland - visited by Tolkien in 1911 - was the inspiration for the hidden valley of Rivendell. I've looked into it, comparing Lauterbrunnental to Tolkien's drawings & paintings of Rivendell, and I'm convinced. In fact, I've gone further: I believe I've identified the exact place Bilbo and Tolkien reached the valley floor.

(Futureproofing/search note: it's Sandweidli at the north end of the valley.)

What I haven't done, but would love to, is identified the source of the Last Homely House. Tolkien drew it so consistently that it must be based on something. My guess is probably somewhere Edith lived, because the guy had a type and she was married to him. But I'm not sure she ever lived in a country house like Elrond's seems to be.

hS