John Ronald Reuel Tolkien – it is somehow unnerving to discover that he had real names rather than initials, and positively weird to learn that his friends called him simply ‘Ron’ – loved trees, one in particular.
It was a giant European Black Pine tree (pinus nigra) and it grew in Oxford’s celebrated Botanic Garden, a few paces from the Merton College house where he lived out his final days. With his feeling for nature and fascination with the wood spirits of Norse mythology and Icelandic saga literature, it is no surprise that Tolkien found solace in the presence of trees, especially after the death of Edith, his beloved wife and soulmate.
There are several places in Oxford which have a strong connection with the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: Exeter College where he studied as an undergraduate (there’s a bust of him in the college chapel); Pembroke College where he was a Fellow for two decades before taking up his Chair at Merton; 20 Northmoor Road (a house previously owned by Sir Basil Blackwell) where he and his family lived for seventeen years, and which now bears a blue plaque; the Eastgate Hotel where, on Monday mornings, he would meet his great friend C.S. Lewis to swap notes about their writing plans; The Eagle and Child, and Lamb & Flag pubs where he would drink beer, recite poems, discuss theology, and puff vast plumes of pipe smoke with his Inkling friends …
… and Wolvercote cemetery where he lies alongside Edith, his lifelong love.
For Tolkien’s personal story is as intensely romantic as the epic quests he wrote about, and, like all the best romances, it is a tale of triumph over adversity.
He and Edith Bratt first met as teenagers. He was 16, she was 19. Their connection was immediate, sparked by a common love of language, literature, and nature, and cemented by the fact that they were both orphans. It was a profound union of kindred spirits.
Their budding romance faced stern opposition, however, from Tolkien’s guardian, Father Francis Morgan, who disapproved of their age difference and Edith’s Protestant faith. He banned his ward from having any contact with her until his 21st birthday, in the hope that by then Ronald would have got distracted by his university studies and arrived at his senses. How wrong he was! JRRT waited. And when the clock chimed midnight on 3 January 1913, he set off to meet Edith with a proposal of marriage. A day later the couple announced their intention to wed.
They went on to have four children and a marriage which flourished for over fifty years. Edith was Ronald’s muse; he referred to her in private as Lúthien – the most beautiful of all the elves. Her mythical name for him was Beren. They lie together, side by side in Wolvercote cemetery, united for ever.
Their graves are adorned with a simple inscription.
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Edith Mary Tolkien
Lúthien
1889-1971
John Ronald
Reuel Tolkien
Beren
1892-1973
Post Script:
The great Black Pine in the Botanical Garden blew down in a storm in 2014, alas; but still there remains a Tolkien tree connection. Two saplings were planted in the University Parks in 1992 to commemorate the centenary of his birth: a Silver Maple and a golden False Acacia. Nearby is a bench with a plaque which bears the following inscription:
In memory of J.R.R. Tolkien
1892 –1973
This bench and two trees nearby
representing Telperion and Laurelin
were donated by the
Tolkien Centenary Conference 1992
The Hobbit, which was first published in 1937, has since gone on to sell over 100 million copies and been translated into more than 50 languages.
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The legacy goes on … We were delighted to receive this email.
Hello. We very much enjoyed the article about Tolkien’s Trees. We moved into his old house (20 Northmoor Road) almost five years ago, and just last year planted a pinus nigra in the front garden. There’s a photo on our Instagram (@20northmoor) It’s flourishing as you can see, and makes a rather attractive Christmas tree!
An ornate sculpture of Tolkien now stands in the front quad of Pembroke College and provides a focus for numerous visiting fans, mostly from America. It was created by the author’s great-nephew, Tim Tolkien, and commemorates JRRT’s time at Pembroke, where he served from 1925 to 1945 as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon.
Tolkien also spent fifteen years at 76 Sandfield Road in Headington. Stephanie Jenkins, who provides a photograph of the house on her fascinating website, writes:
Tolkien worked in the garage. Over its door is this inscribed portland stone plaque, carved in the 1970s by Bill Brown of Kidlington for the owner Mr Phillips. On the left of the plaque is the dragon Smaug, from The Hobbit
Tolkien was a gifted artist whose sketches and illustrations often adorned his books. The Bodleian Library holds the largest collection of original Tolkien manuscripts and drawings in the world,
We received this fascinating elaboration from Julia Golding, Tolkien expert and Director of the Oxford Centre for Fantasy (whose emblem is a tree.)
Beren was a man, Luthien an elf maid – the first of the man/elf pairings in Tolkien which is where love reaches across the divide between a mortal and an immortal. Perhaps that was indicative of how big the gulf was between him and Edith and the opposition they had to overcome? The pair do more than fall in love. They go into Melkor’s lair (he is Sauron’s boss – an evil Valar/demigod) and take a silmaril from his crown – a disputed jewel, one of three that has in it the light of the two trees which Melkor destroyed. It’s a wonderful story with a talking dog and a lot of shape-changing – great stuff. From that action is the seed of many things that lead to the more familiar Lord of the Rings material – a foundational myth if you like.
For 33 years Dr Keith Kirby MBE worked as national forestry and woodland officer with Natural England, until 2012 when he resumed research in Oxford. His particular interest in long-term change in the British woodland grows out of his extensive study of Wytham Woods. His blog is fascinating: https://theoldmanofwytham.com/ He is a Tolkien fan.
I got into Tolkien in my early teens – even before I had decided to be a forester – and read and re-read The Lord of the Rings incessantly. I had Tolkien posters on my wall as a student. I still go back to that book every 5-10 years. You may not be surprised to learn that the Ents and Tom Bombadil are my favourite characters. Those who worked with me in later life sometimes flattered me by calling me Gandalf, although I think at best I could aspire to Radagast the Brown on the wizard front.
