[Mithalwen]

I have read the previous posts fairly quickly, so I hope I don't repeat what has already been said more eloquently by someone else....

For me, although it was the strangeness (as in difference) of Middle Earth that formed a major part of the appeal of LOTR when I read it first,as a young adolescent, and used it as a method of escape from my own reality; now as an adult it is, in part, the ability to relate LOTR to my own world that maintains interest.

Although there is much to praise in the films ( I grieve for omissions and diversions as much as most other "book" people but that ground is all ready well trodden), and I understand the "filmic" reasons for it's omission, I feel that without " the scouring of the Shire" the whole story lost its point - at least has far as the Hobbits are concerned. I think that most moving speech of Frodo's "I wanted to save the Shire..." is hugely significant. He didn't set out to save the world. He never intended to be a hero. He just wanted to save he place he loved. Similarly the other hobbits went out of friendship primarily. You cannot stay at home and expect theworld to leave you alone - or go away and find all unchanged.

Without "community" - the quest would have failed. Aragorn's decision not to "sacrifice" Merry and Pippin, by going after the "principal" was key to the success of the quest - without all the events that unfurled consequent to this, Frodo and Sam could not have finished their task. And it is by ralling the community that the Shire is rid of it's invaders.

The Shire, is England, the hobbits are English ... when I read the gaffer's words, I find them so similar to "passed down" quotes of my great grandfather, who would have been about a generation older than Tolkien .... Hobbits may be physically different from men .. but they aren't "foreign" at least not to someone old enough to have had contact with those of a pre-car age. I think the characterisation of the shire folk is affectionate, and a reminder among high ideals that little things and ordinary people are worth fighting for too - freedom is being able to go to the pub for a pint and to "put the world to rights" without fearing that your words will land you in gaol or worse. Sometimes, in the face of overwhelming loss the little things seem most important. I feel there is something very poignant in Sam mourning his saucepans when the world is about to end. We can relate to the gaffer and Lobelia because we know them, in a way we do not know the mighty lords of Gondor.

Despite the urbanisation and spread of Birmingham, Warwickshire is still amazingly rural .... parts I am sure have changed very little since Tolkien's youth - and it is insanely beautiful. So beautiful that it reminds you that your much maligned country is worth caring about, worth fighting for. I know Tolkien hated allegory, but I think it is likely he was at least subconsciously affected by the situation of England and the world around the time he wrote. It should not be forgotten how precarious Britain's state was between the fall of France and the entry of the US into the war. Like the Shire it was so nearly lost.


Englishness is not a topic which most of us who are English are comfortable addressing. There is a feeling that any pride in our heritage condones the "shame" of the country's imperial past. However - if we fear to look beyond our borders for fear of accusations of Empire building, we risk the other accusation - that we are "Little Englanders" , insular, smug, complacent, thinking ourselves safe on our island.

At the start of the story, the Shire folk are "Little Englanders" (sorry if that seems an awful pun on their stature - for once I am trying to be serious!) - I feel the Breelanders are English too but their location, like the gives them a more "outward look". If the shire is protected by an expanse of uninhabited land as Britain is protected by the Sea, then Bree is a port town, more linked to the outside world.

The hobbits go out into the world and influence it's events but they do not Empire build. They return, and though they undo the "industrialisation", they do not quite return to the status quo. The materials are used to improve the homes of ordinary hobbits, the food stores are distributed for the benefit of all. While I wouldn't quite say that it is a form of communism, I feel that there is a shift in power away from aristocracy to meritocracy. It isn't that the hereditary authority figures, the Thain and Master, are overthrown, just that the elected mayor, the lowborn Sam, increases in stature.

Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for England, but maybe, unwittingly, he also created a pattern for England's involvement in the modern world.

Despite some editing, I feel I am reaching for something I cannot quite clasp here, I cannot find words to express I feel quite viscerally. I hope it makes some sense - otherwise forgive the ramblings of a madwoman.

PS I would add that I started writing befor Davem posted so that is why it doesn't quite follow on!