I feel like you, Mark. (Helen!) Though I appreciate the charming "Englishness" of the Shire and all, I don't need "England" to find the Shire. Never did! That's the magic spell The Hobbit and LoTRs cast upon me at first readings! Any temperate zone forest with a good mix of deciduous trees and evergreens, mossy stumps and stones, gnarley old tree roots, mysterious piles of brush with shadowed holes and depressions in the middleground, will do it for me. I think more of the "feel of the moment", and the ability to take joy in "magic" for magic's sake, as the appeal of the Shire, Old Forest, Bombadil and all. That's the fairy thing (in my mind). Obviously, I've never been to England! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: Liriodendron ]
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