Tell us something.: I've picked up the tinwhistle again after several years, and have recently purchased a Chieftain v5 from Kerry Whistles that I cannot wait to get (why can't we beam stuff yet, come on Captain Kirk, get me my Low D!)
as Tolkien states in the prologue to ‘The Lord of the Rings’, it would be fruitless to look for geographical correspondences, as “Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed…” And yet, that’s exactly what Peter Bird attempts with the map here shown. Bird, a professor of Geophysics and Geology at UCLA, has overlapped the map of Middle-earth with one of Europe, which leads to following locations:
• The Shire is in the South-West of England, which further north is also home to the Old Forest (Yorkshire?), the Barrow Downs (north of England), the city of Bree (at or near Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and Amon Sul (Scottish Highlands).
• The Grey Havens are situated in Ireland.
• Eriador corresponds with Brittany.
• Helm’s Deep is near the Franco-German-Swiss border tripoint, close to the city of Basel.
• The mountain chain of Ered Nimrais is the Alps.
• Gondor corresponds with the northern Italian plains, extended towards the unsubmerged Adriatic Sea.
• Mordor is situated in Transylvania, with Mount Doom in Romania (probably), Minas Morgul in Hungary (approximately) and Minas Tirith in Austria (sort of).
• Rohan is in southern Germany, with Edoras at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. Also in Germany, but to the north, near present-day Hamburg, is Isengard. Close by is the forest of Fangorn.
• To the north is Mirkwood, further east are Rhovanion and the wastes of Rhûn, close to the Ural mountains.
• The Sea of Rhûn corresponds to the Black Sea.
• Khand is Turkey
• Haradwaith is the eastern part of North Africa, Umbar corresponds with the Maghreb, the western part of North Africa.
• The Bay of Belfalas is the western part of the Mediterranean.
“First lesson: money is not wealth; Second lesson: experiences are more valuable than possessions; Third lesson: by the time you arrive at your goal it’s never what you imagined it would be so learn to enjoy the process” - unknown
Tell us something.: I've picked up the tinwhistle again after several years, and have recently purchased a Chieftain v5 from Kerry Whistles that I cannot wait to get (why can't we beam stuff yet, come on Captain Kirk, get me my Low D!)
Innocent Bystander wrote:It was in Professor Tolkein's mind.
Repeat after me:
"Middle Earth is not a real place. Gandalf is not a real person. There are no hobbits."
nobody made that contention.
/getting off your lawn...
“First lesson: money is not wealth; Second lesson: experiences are more valuable than possessions; Third lesson: by the time you arrive at your goal it’s never what you imagined it would be so learn to enjoy the process” - unknown
Putting Rivendell and Moria so very far north (that would "Up" on gonzo's map) just makes the path chosen three times longer than it was supposed to be, and even then it was a very roundabout path to begin with. Trying to stretch Middle Earth over Europe in this manner just loses so much common sense in this application.
Tolkien stole the name and concept of Middle Earth from Norse legends and myths. Does anyone if there is any attempt to map the original Middle Earth to anywhere in Europe?
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
Don't lose track of the amount of time which, in Tolkien's legendarium, has passed between those days and this--if memory serves (I'm not where I can access my books right now), about 10,000 years since Frodo cast the Ring into the Fire.
The shape of many lands can change in such a length of time--it's hard to count exactly, but I believe, according to the legendarium, we are presently in the Seventh Age.
peeplj wrote:about 10,000 years since Frodo cast the Ring into the Fire.
Sorry, but 10K years is a drop in the bucket. It's been 10K since the last ice age. You would need a few million years for that much tectonic drift to have occurred.
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
peeplj wrote:about 10,000 years since Frodo cast the Ring into the Fire.
Sorry, but 10K years is a drop in the bucket. It's been 10K since the last ice age. You would need a few million years for that much tectonic drift to have occurred.
djm
Good point, but you gotta remember in the legendarium usually when lands move around it's not due to tectonic drift.
Most often it seems to be caused by epic battles like the War of Wrath or the downfall of Westernesse.
