At the Footsteps of JRR Tolkien

“I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.”
– JRR Tolkien in The Return Of The King

In my previous article, I featured some of the pathways I have used in class to help my students capture that which is most human in man. I shared and discussed some lines from Victor Frankl and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, two writers known for their profound understanding of the human condition.

This week, I share with you my pursuit of JRR Tolkien.

The popular appeal of Tolkien stems from a movie trilogy that has captured the sensibilities of a generation who have witnessed the power of good over a seemingly insurmountable evil. The power of the ring – evil – over anyone who wears it is such that even Gandalf hesitates to wear it himself. It is humbling to see him put faith instead on a creature that at first glance, demands the least respect. The candor of a hobbit, oftentimes mistaken as naivete, indeed, may make him appear unreliable. It is also this candor though, freed from prejudice and malice, which makes him steadfast in his quest for that which mattered.

Mesmerized with Tolkien, I just had to trace his footsteps when I had to chance to visit Oxford a few months before the pandemic. The hotel where I stayed, the Randolph, was right in front of the Ashmolean Museum. It was also right on the same street where a pub which Tolkien frequented was located, the Eagle and Child.

The pub is famous for being a meeting place for the Inklings, an Oxford writers’ group which included CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Hugo Dyson. From late 1933, they had regular weekly meetings here during lunchtime, and it was at one of those meetings in June 1950 that CS Lewis distributed the proofs for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. More to this in my article next month.

During my visit to the pub, it was such a delight to have found the exact spots known to have been favored by CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. It was even more enthralling to hear anecdotes of CS Lewis’ conversion to Christianity through his friendship with Tolkien.

Friendship builds trust, and trust is the foundation on which all relationships are built, including God’s. In the words of St. Josemaria Escriva, “Through your friendship and doctrine—or rather, through charity and the message of Christ—you will move many non-Catholics to help in earnest and to do good to all men (Furrow, 753). “In a Christian, in a child of God, friendship and charity are one and the same thing” (The Forge, 565).

I feel fortunate to have visited Eagle and Child before the news of its planned transformation into a hotel, it already is currently undergoing renovation work.

In November 2019, a few months after my visit, the Oxford City Council gave the owners of the building, St Johns College, permission to carry out the building work to put in hotel rooms. Part of the ground floor and first floor rear extensions will be demolished, and the cafe next door will be converted into a hotel reception and rooms. Accordingly, the upper floors will also be repurposed for accommodation, but the downstairs pub area will remain.

I am glad that this section where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to meet, where conversations and conversion happened, and where the radiance of Truth no less bore witness, can still continually be celebrated on every future visit. (Honey Libertine Achanzar-Labor, PhD)