Talk:England in Middle-earth

Tuck
With regard to the matrix that cites Shippey, what is meant by drawing a parallel between Took and Tuck? Yes, Tuck is an English surname (as in Friar Tuck), but so is Took. I think it is true that the hobbits of the Shire all have English surnames or surnames that sound English (I don't think that Baggins is a real English surname, but I could be wrong). Not having read Shippey, I don't know what he's getting at. And neither would many other readers look at that matrix...--Jack Upland (talk) 02:08, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * They're versions of the same name. Added a bit of etymology in a note. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:41, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * But why choose Took as an example?--Jack Upland (talk) 16:01, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

You'd have to ask him that. But it's one of the central hobbit characters and many people might suppose it an invention so perhaps it's rather well-chosen. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:02, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

angles, angles, angles

 * Lothlórien, too, carries overtones of a perfect, timeless England; Shippey analyses how Tolkien's careful account in The Lord of the Rings of the land in the angle between two rivers, the Hoarwell and the Loudwater, matches the Angle between the Flensburg Fjord and the River Schlei, the legendary origin of the Angles, one of the three tribes who founded England, and how the hobbits feel they have stepped "over a bridge in time".

This passage confuses two places. There is (also) an angle between rivers in Lothlórien, but Hoarwell and Loudwater are on the other side of the Misty Mountains! —Tamfang (talk) 17:56, 18 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've added a gloss to the text; and a table to spell out the three-way comparisons. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:16, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Mercia and the word "Mark"
The word "Mark" is not from Latin as originally stated here. Mark, in this context, is a word of Germanic origin meaning frontier or border. It is from this that the Germanic tribe "Marcomanni" derive their name. In the case of the Marcomanni, that is a Romanized form from the likely original, Markman or Markmanne, meaning Frontiersmen, that got interpreted by a Roman as Marcomanni.

Mercia indeed has a shared link to the "Mark" as the land was settled as a frontier for Roman Britain by Germanic mercenaries...a word that also could have been the reason for the land being called Mercia (as opposed to it being a Mark). 65.254.18.190 (talk) 19:08, 3 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Um, two things. One is, I think we violently agree. The other is, we are not allowed --- are strictly forbidden --- to reason from our own knowledge, opinion, or experience (see the policy WP:OR). The article is fully cited and we must go with what the cited scholar says. In this case, it's Tom Shippey, who certainly does not say "it's a Latin word". He wrote


 * "Among historians the central kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England is invariably known as 'Mercia', its inhabitants as 'Mercians'. These must however be Latinizations of native terms, and indeed the West Saxons called their neighbours the Myrce. If their name for their neighbours' kingdom had survived it would certainly have been, the *Mearc. Tolkien ... would have had no trouble in translating this back into Mercian ... and coming up with the *Marc, pronounced 'Mark'."


 * All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:21, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

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 * Hobbit origins map.svg
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Misrepresentation of "Mythology for England" as generally accepted
In order to meet the criteria for a good article, the entry should present information in a neutral way, and this one has note done so. It presents the idea that Tolkien's work is seen as a mythology for England by all scholars. In fact, many scholars have challenged this idea, most notably Dimitra Fimi in her work Tolkien Race and Cultural History, which details how Tolkien's conception of his own work shifts over time and moves away from relating work directly to England using a mythical framework.

The article is under-researched and needs to represent both sides of this critical debate. 199.48.94.87 (talk) 16:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your view. The article makes no claim that scholars universally hold any point of view (they almost never do). Nor does it argue that there is a literal 1:1 mapping between places in England and places in Middle-earth. Tolkien indeed toyed with that very early on with places (such as Warwick) that he had visited, and he indeed moved away from that tight relationship, as Fimi rightly says. But that has basically nothing to do with the subject of England and Englishness in Middle-earth, where the mapping is much vaguer ("the latitude of Oxford", etc). Instead, each claim in the article is cited and indeed attributed to a specific scholar, and their views are neutrally reported throughout: the article doesn't take a stand on any particular scholar's position. There aren't two "sides" here, but many viewpoints, and the views of at least 20 scholars are represented plainly and directly in the article.


 * Another point that may be worth taking on board is that an article on a subject like the Englishness of Middle-earth is by definition covering just one aspect; there are numerous articles on other aspects, including the influence of other places and their literatures, as discussed by other scholars, Fimi included. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:26, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I understand your point that there are multiple viewpoints, all correctly cited; however, as all of the viewpoints chosen were representative of one side of an ongoing debate within research, and no quotes which represented the other side of the debate were included, the result was an entry that was misleading as to the conclusions of scholarship at this point.
 * I appreciate the addition of the section on Fimi, which I believe does much to remedy the problems I mentioned. 199.48.94.87 (talk) 16:59, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. However, the analysis that there is All vs Fimi certainly isn't correct; the article covers Hobbit Englishness, Rohan's Old Englishness, Tolkien's cautious homage to Shakespeare, his explicit "to my country" dedication, the Ælfwine/Elf-friend reconstruction of prehistory, the Beowulf-based mythology, and the reflections of First World War England. This is not "one side" of any debate, but a rich, deep, and multi-faceted presentation of a complex picture. You might also note that the article already gave Hostetter's view that the skies over Beowulf were "northern" but "not English". All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:30, 16 January 2024 (UTC)