Off the Map

[davem]

Hmmm

But the interesting thing to my mind is the way this shows how the world of M-e was always in flux. Clearly Tolkien never saw the world as 'finished'. He would add in Inns & streams & such when the inspiration took him, & something as simple as a correspondent's name could lead to new additions to his world.

As I said, what interests me is the way such 'little' things could produce new aspects of his world, go into the leaf mould of the mind.

Of course, we're all familiar, as I pointed out, with the 'big' things that went into the 'soup', but aren't the little things intriguing too? And how many of these sources will be forever hidden? Its easy to write essays, even whole books, on Tolkien's inspirations - The Eddas, the Kalevala, the Sagas of Icelanders & such, but what were the little things - & were they, in their way, just as important? What if Miss Honeybourne hadn't written that letter - because even if Tolkien didn't put the 'Honeybourne' stream/watermeadow into another map, even if he forgot the whole idea a few hours after penning that letter, for a short time at least there was a spot in The Shire where a little stream of sweet water ran through flowery meadows.... And before he received that letter it hadn't. It came into being purely because she wrote to him.