# Was middle earth our earth?



## Celebthôl (Aug 10, 2003)

Heh heh heh.

So was it, or was it not?

I know of a few who know it was  including me 

What do you guys believe?


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## FoolOfATook (Aug 10, 2003)

> And though I have not attempted to relate the shape of the mountains and land-masses to what geologists may say or surmise about the nearer past, imagitively this 'history' is supposed to take place in a period of the actual Old World of this planet.


-J.R.R. Tolkien, letter 165



> The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary





> Mine is not an 'imaginary' world, but an imaginary historical moment on 'Middle-earth' - which is our habitation.


-J.R.R. Tolkien, letter 183



> I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the ages were of the same length as the S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.


-J.R.R. Tolkien, letter 211

Looks like Tolkien agreed with you Thol.


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## BlackCaptain (Aug 10, 2003)

Well, *technicaly* it wasn't... But seeing everything FoolofaTook quoted... I have my opinions. I just don't know how to say them without saying something FoaT or Thol said  I.... Think...


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## Celebthôl (Aug 11, 2003)

Looks like Arda is Earth then


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## Rhiannon (Aug 12, 2003)

Of _course_ it was. Don't be silly.


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## Captain (Aug 12, 2003)

I remember hearing that Middle-earth was supposed to be old England.


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## Turin (Aug 12, 2003)

I thought ME was all of Europe(sp?). Once again nice avatar BC.


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## Niirewen (Aug 12, 2003)

I would have to agree with Celebthol and others, of course Middle-earth was our Earth. And those quotes FoolOfATook gave were great. Also I'm pretty sure that Tolkien created the Shire to be very similar to rural England.


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## Holly (Aug 17, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Celebthôl _
> *Heh heh heh.
> 
> So was it, or was it not?
> ...


 YES, IT'S TRUE!


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## Turin (Aug 17, 2003)

Imagine walking in the woods one day and seeing a troll cave with a bunch of stolen weapons from ME, that would be awsome


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## Arebeth (Aug 21, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Captain _
> *I remember hearing that Middle-earth was supposed to be old England. *



I'm sure it was. I mean, there is a strange feeling I get only when I go wandering in some lost place in England that tells me so. Something like _at home at last._ 



> Nice planet. We'll take it!


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## Jesse (Aug 27, 2003)

No, it is not true.


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## FoolOfATook (Aug 27, 2003)

> No, it is not true.



Um... What are you basing that on? I think that Tolkien's own words pretty much establish that Arda and Earth aren't seperate planets.


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## Silmarien (Sep 9, 2003)

Well I don't know if someone said this or not (cause I didn't read everyone's posts ) but i believe that it was because Tolkien said somewhere that The Lord of the Rings was meant to be a history for England cause they didn't really have one


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## Evenstar373 (Sep 20, 2003)

I voted yes becaues in The magical worlds of Middle earth it says that Middle earth was in Europ ( I dont think I spelt that right)
and that you could not match it up beacuse Land forms change over time


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## Hobbit-GalRosie (Sep 23, 2003)

Yeah, Middle-Earth was I believe actually a name for either Europe or just "the western world" in general, and that's where Tolkien got the name. I think considering the vast amount of quotes from Tolkien himself on this subject and the fact that the stars were the same (The Wain was the Great Bear, and Orome with a name something like Telemehtar was Orion) make this a kind of non-issue. As to the 5 people who have so far voted that it is _not_ the same place, I'd like to hear why. So far Jesse is the only one who has had the courage to stand, but understandably has not offered any arguements.


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## jallan (Sep 27, 2003)

Well, I could say why it is not our earth.

The geography doesn’t fit and never could have fit. An iron age Europe about 6,000 years ago doesn’t fit our earth either.

The tecchnology is a bad mix of later Victorian and early medieval, with the Shire being more advanced than urban centers like Minas Tirith.

In short it is not our earth _per se_. But it is a fictional and very different version of our earth and not of some other place.

What I‚m really saying is that what Tolkien is doing is just a little too complex for an either/or decision as to whether his Middle-earth is our own Afro-Eurasian supercontinent.

He is not writing about another planet or another dimension. But a version of our own planet so fictionalized is not really our own world either.

It is hard to make clear sometimes in what ways Tolkien’s legendarium does deal supposedly with our own world but in what ways it doesn’t.

One might do so by perhaps asking if Arthurian legend deals with real Britain. Yes, it takes place in Britain mostly. But it is not the historical Britain of the fifth and sixth century.


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## e.Blackstar (Oct 13, 2003)

Perhaps, if it is not our earth specifically (although I think it is), maybe it is an alternate universe! Ooooooh!!!!


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## Lhunithiliel (Oct 14, 2003)

> _Originally posted by jallan _
> 
> One might do so by perhaps asking if Arthurian legend deals with real Britain. Yes, it takes place in Britain mostly. But it is not the historical Britain of the fifth and sixth century.


That's odd!!!  
I have always believed that it is a purely British tale and all the events and places described existed once on the isle... Of course, one should extract the fantastical element... but I was convinced that these tales are based on true events and people. 

Besides, isn't the atmosphere described typical for that 5-th or 6-th century-England when it is believed that the mythical king lived!?? So very much, I'd say - dragon-hunting, castle feasts, bold endeavours , knights...etc... Why do you say it is no so?

I read in one of the variants of this legend that King Arthur didn't actually die. And that on his tomb there is the following ensciption:

"HIC IACET ARTHURUS,
REX QUONDAM
REXQUE FUTURUS"

(_Here lies Arthur, the once and future King_)

I've wondered.... what do the British think of all that? How much do they cherish the memory of their "eternal" King and .......where would that Isle of Avalon could actually be placed ?


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## Rhiannon (Oct 14, 2003)

> I was convinced that these tales are based on true events and people.



They are...very, very loosely. There was an Arthur, but exactly who/what he was no one knows for sure. The common theory, I think, is that he was a Celtic chieftain who united many of the people, was was overthrown by his own son. Things like Lancelot and Guinevere were added later by the French (just like Maid Marian and Fiar Tuck- they don't appear in the older Robin Hood stories). Merlin I believe is based on a Welsh bard connected to Taliesin, but I'm fuzzy on the details. 

The accepted version of the tale is that Arthur isn't dead and will return in Britain's 'greatest need' (my brother told me when he was twelve that Arthur had already come back; as Winston Churchill).


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## Kahmûl (Oct 15, 2003)

I think Harad kinda looks a bit like Africa and it has the same climate.


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## Celebthôl (Oct 15, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Rhiannon _
> *The accepted version of the tale is that Arthur isn't dead and will return in Britain's 'greatest need' (my brother told me when he was twelve that Arthur had already come back; as Winston Churchill). *



I like this  It sounds all mystical and yay


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## Rhiannon (Oct 15, 2003)

> I like this It sounds all mystical and yay



I rather like the idea too- My brother is an interesting person.


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## jallan (Oct 16, 2003)

Llunithithiliel posted about the Arthurian legend:


> I have always believed that it is a purely British tale and all the events and places described existed once on the isle... Of course, one should extract the fantastical element... but I was convinced that these tales are based on true events and people.


One of the most notable thing about the surviving Arthurian tales is the way they contradict each other so that there is not one single, coherent Arthurian legend. E.g. one biography of Lancelot tells of his long love affair with Guenivere while another makes no mention of such a thing and tells how Lancelot was married, three times!

And much of what the medieval tales say contradicts the little we know of late 5th and early 6th century Britain.

Some scholars have tried to fit some of the accounts in by assuming enormous distortions: e.g. Geoffrey Ashe argues that the stories of Arthur fighting against the Romans were actually based on Riothamus aiding the Romans, and that Riothamus was the real Arthur.

Central to the medieval romances is the joust between apposing knights charging on horseback and striking each other with couched lances. But in 5th and 6th century Europe the stirrup was unknown. Jousting would have been impossible.

Further oddities: Welsh sources (except one which translates two French grail romances) never mention the Round Table. As far as we know the Romans and Roman Britains did never used tables for eating.

The Welsh did even have a word for _table_ until they borrowed _bord_ from the Saxons as Welsh _bwrd_.

As Rhiannon indicated, must of what people think of as standard Arthurian legend: the Round Table, Lancelot du Lac, the Grail story, Morgaine la Fée and Mordret being Arthur's illegitimate son are from French sources.

The great English work of Arthurian Romance is Sir Thomas Malory’s _Le Morte Darthur_ which is drawn mostly from French Arthurian romances.

The romance Arthurian geography can sometimes be matched with British geography but is mostly vague and misty or totally wrong with Carleon placed on the Thames, the Humber river in Wales, Windsor in Wales, Oxford next to or within Northumberland and so forth. One romance seems to identify Camelot with Westminster. Malory identifies it with Winchester, but does so just at the point where his source introduces Winchester as a city separate from Camelot.

It would appear that some French writers threw in genuine British (and English) place names for color but had no idea of where they were.

A delightful medieval explanation of the incoherent geography of Arthurian tales is found in The High History of the Holy Graal, Branch XX:


> Josephus telleth us that the semblances of the islands changed themselves by reason of the divers adventures that by the pleasure of God befell therein, and that the quest of adventures would not have pleased the knights so well and they had not found them so different. For, when they had entered into a forest or an island where they had found any adventure, and they came there another time, they found holds and castles and adventures of another kind, so that their toils and travails might not weary them, and also for that God would that the land should be conformed to the New Law.


As to where Avalon should be placed, well the earliest surviving account to give any details is in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s _Vita Merlini_. Search for Avalon. Here it is almost certainly a myserious supernatural island in the sea. Morgaine is often called a goddess in medieval texts and sometimes appears living in times long before Arthur.

Glastonbury Abbey claimed to be situated on the real Avalon, a hill in Somerset that was somewhat surrounded by marshes (and may earlier have been a real island). Glastonbury Abbey claimed to possess Arthur’s body, and Joseph of Arimathea’s body, and St. Patrick’s body and the bodies of numerous other saints. 

Medieval abbeys and churches made many claims to possessing relics and bodies of famous saints or secular heroes. The claims often conflicted with one another or can be shown to be bogus. St. Ursula and her 11,000 virgins are a notorious example. So Glastonbury's claim to have possessed Arthur’s body and therefore to be identified with Avalon should not be accepted uncritically.

See Glastonbury and Fécamp for various citations of the inscription found on a cross above the body of the purported Arthur and an engraving of what William Camden the antiquary believed was the cross itself. The cross has since vanished.

The particular supposed inscription you cite is found in the colophon to the late English metrical romance known as the _Alliterative Morte Arthure_. See Alliterative Morte Arthure, Part IV. Sir Thomas Malory used this work in his compilation and quoted this purported inscription at the end of his work and it is from this that it is best known.


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## Rhiannon (Oct 17, 2003)

Jallan, that was a fantastic post. Thank you very much (my knowledge is a very spotty-picked-up-in-introductions-and-side-notes-on-Arthurian-re-tellings sort of knowledge).


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