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Steve Ponty was born in Pontypridd, Wales. With a languages background including the learning of Welsh, the 'Author' studied classical literature and poetry; and law at Cambridge. Steve practised law in the City of London for far too long for his own good. He researched the topography of the Cotswolds and surrounding areas from about 2006 and, to his staggerment, unearthed J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Shire' by close comparison between the maps of Middle- and Mother-earth, and started writing it down. Steve has spent over 10 years researching the settings Professor Tolkien turned from reality in the Cotswold shires into fantasy fiction. It is the reversal of the map from Oxfordshire through to the Severn Estuary that serves as the true inspiration for the Shire in these well known and much acclaimed works, translated into virtually every language worldwide. The Lord of the Rings is the best selling book of the 20th century.By reversing the Map of the Shire and looking at it back to front, Steve has identified the Cotswolds and many other parts of the Four Shires (Worcester-, Gloucester-, Oxford-, Warwick- shire) comprising the Shire in the legendary story. These four are marked on the stone very near to Bree (Moreton-in-Marsh), used by Professor J.R.R. Tolkien as his model for the Three Farthings Stone in The Lord of the Rings. Apart from the countless secrets of geography hidden in the epic story, there are allusions, never revealed before this brand new perspective, to personalities contemporary with Professor Tolkien's writings: from Churchill(at The Yale and Brandy Hall, otherwise Blenheim Palace) to the notorious Mitford sisters (at Stock, otherwise Swinbrook) to Oswald Mosley(at Crickhollow, otherwise Wootton-headed) and to Vita Sackville-West (of the High Hay hedge) . . . to the Professor's true-life role model for Aragorn, Roy Campbell, a much admired poet of the day . . . such that in many ways the Lord of the Rings may be read as a parody of England in the 1930's and the War years . . . The backdrop to Steve's work is the sometimes chivalric language of a number of the classic romantic poets (Tennyson, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Coleridge), poets local to the Shire( Houseman, Shaw, Auden) as well as favourite contemporary lyricists, which means Dylan. There is also a lively dialogue between Gollum and Smeagol, meant to lighten the load on an arduous quest. Cotswold places under review (but with many, many more) include Chipping Norton (Hobbiton), The Bywater Pool (a relic of the Seventeenth Century), The Rollright Stones (Barrow Downs), Moreton in Marsh (Bree), Meon Hill (Weathertop), Bredon Hill (The Trollshaws with Bert, Tom, and William the stone trolls), Upton on Severn (The Ford) and the Malvern Hills (The Misty Mountains), with Great Malvern very clearly mapped for Rivendell. Over the Welsh border, Steve foresees the Wye Valley about Tintern Abbey for Lothlorien and The Forest of Dean for Fangorn Forest. Steve's journey may eventually extend down into Continental Europe, through Northern France (via Cair Andros, Paris), over the Pyrenees (Ered Nimrais) and through Minas Tirith (Rome), onwards Mordor . . . where lie the shadows . . . in Germany. 'The Lord of the Rings' is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; . . . the religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism.'(Letters, J.R.R. Tolkien)The Author makes some attempt to explain what Professor Tolkien may have meant, with special reference to Providence; but the Author also dabbles in Witchcraft. *The Author offers the assurance that, at least on Mother-earth, we may all know the way a little better following 'The Secret Shire of Cotswold.'

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Publié par	Steve Ponty
Date de parution	11 août 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781527211216
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	4 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE SECRET SHIRE of COTSWOLD

Steve Ponty
Text Copyright © 2017 Steve Ponty
All Rights Reserved

Cover Art: Steve/Kay McGowan/Deri Gaine

The Secret Shire of Cotswold
Steve Ponty

VOLUME I: HOBBITON-RIVENDELL
(pub. as of June 1, 2017)

‘It was fifty years ago today
Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play’

The written work within this Volume is deemed to constitute ‘fair dealing’ for the purpose of criticism or review, and discussion and assessment, of all source material referred to in this work, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
‘ It was fifty years ago today Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play’
To: Dylan
The written work within this Volume is deemed to constitute ‘fair dealing’ for the purpose of criticism or review, and discussion and assessment, of all source material referred to in this work, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
PREFACE
‘I fear you may be right that the search for the sources of The Lord of the Rings is going to occupy academics for a generation or two. I wish this not to be so. To my mind it is the particular use in a particular situation of any motive whether invented, deliberately borrowed, or unconsciously remembered that is the most interesting thing to consider.’
Contents
PART ONE: GENESIS OF THE QUEST
PART TWO: APPENDIX A TO F
PART THREE: RINGS OF POWER
INDEX
RING (M:I) HOBBITON: www.cotswolds.info
(Waymoot (and Michel Delving); Bindbole Wood; Needlehole; Nobottle; Rushock Bog; the Bywater Pool)
RING (M:II) BUCKLAND: www.oxfordshirevillages.co.uk
*www.thames-path.org.uk/thames_northmoor_tadpole.html
(The Brandywine River and Bridge; Girdley Island; the Bucklebury Ferry; Stock: A First Flitch)
RING (M:III) THE OLD FOREST:
*www.charlbury.info/walking/1
(Crickhollow; Newbury; Standelf; Haysend; The Withywindle)
RING (M:IV)THE THREE FARTHING STONE: www.hunimex.
com/warwick/four_shire_stone.html
(Frogmorton; Whitfurrows; The Yale; Brockenborings; Scary)
RING (M:V)THE BARROW DOWNS: www.rollrightstones.co.uk
(Stock: The Second Flitch)
RING (M:VI)BREE: www.cotswolds.info
(Archet, Combe and Staddle)
(+) AT THE CROSSROADS; Portrait Gallegory
RING (M:VII)WEATHERTOP:
*w ww.bbc.co.uk/coventry/features/weird-warwickshire/1945-witchcraft-murder.shtml
(The Chetwood; The Midgewater Marshes; Author’s Short Cut Gone Wrong)
RING (M:VIII) THE LAST BRIDGE: www.cotswolds.info
(Mitheithel;Hoarwell;Bruinen)
RING (D:I)THE TROLLSHAWS: www.bredonhillview.co.uk/local-history/a-short-history-of-bredon-hill
(Afon Brwynen; Rhudaur)
RING (E:I)THE FORD: www.cotswolds.info
(Tharbad)
RING (E:II)RIVENDELL: www.cotswolds.info
(Nin-In-Eilph)
Coda Volume I
* staggermental eucatastrophe (3)

PREAMBLE
‘ I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?’
(Samwise Gamgee, The Two Towers)
The Quest is mined on two levels; the first was a quest for the topography of the Shire of Middle-earth in and around England’s Cotswold Hills; but, tracking ever onwards beyond the Shire, there, at Rivendell, the Author falls into the deepest tunnels below the pitheads of the Shire, which you, our Audience, will come to know as the Rings of Power ; and trucks on from our account of The Council of Elrond, ever onwards to Mordor: for at the Council there begin shifts, night and day, to Mordor, to shed new shafts of light on some of the doctrines underpinning the story in The Lord of the Rings: the Wheel of Fire, the essence of Frodo, Gandalf and Saruman and Sauron in opposition; Free Will and the One Ring; Good and Evil; and, for an initial revelation until it resurfaces from time to time up the road ahead, the following from Letter Number 142...

‘‘The Lord of the Rings’ is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work....the religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism.’’

The mining industry may be asleep, rather like Smaug within The Lonely Mountain, but the words of the lyricists awaken it for unearthing the pure gold of poetry, just below the road ahead...

Gollum: ...Ach s-ss...Gerron wivvit, Awffer Mas-sster ...
Smeagol:. ...yes, indeed, My Luvvs, make haste! Time is short... a bit like wot hobbitses is like!...

‘ abstract threats too noble to neglect...‘
It is copyright Steve Ponty in the present form effective December 10, 2016; that date matters...before that date, the voice was called First Voice; yet now The Nobel Voice : and in that of Leonard Cohen, gone on just the month before...

‘[the award of the Nobel Prize]
is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest
for being the highest mountain.’

Dylan’s lyrics are so well resourced in the public domain that we analyse them on the same level (for purposes of criticism or review within context) as any of the other great poets in the domain; even though The Nobel Voice will not play the game...

‘Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, ‘Are my songs literature?’
So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question ,...’
(Speech: Award Nobel Prize)
‘It Ain‘t Me Babe’

Even so...
‘Everybody knows by now that there’s a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I’m encouraging anybody who’s ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them.
(bobdylan.com)

Those of the Audience in doubt about the respect due the lyrics of Bob Dylan, prized by the Author on our Quest, might like to consider the following...

‘Only a fool in here would think
he’s got anything to prove’

Dylan earned yet another distinction in a 2007 study of US legal opinions and briefs that found his lyrics were quoted by judges and lawyers more than those of any other songwriter, 186 times versus 74 by the Beatles, who were second. Among those quoting Dylan were US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, both conservatives. The most widely cited lines included ‘you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows’ from ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ and ‘when you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose’ from ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.

‘The highest purpose of art is to inspire...
What else can you do for anyone
but inspire them?’
(Dylan)

If the American Justices admire the inspiration of sung lyrics, then so might we. We bring to mind, when confronted with critics of the quality of the writing in the Lord of the Rings, Professor Tolkien’s retort that the reaction did not trouble him, because he may not like his critics’ work either, and so we offer the following to those (and there are many, the Author has heard from some, and, of, others, and is expecting more if they react to this) who choose to undermine, criticise, ultimately to ignore the ethos, sincerity and hidden, yet ever humble, boldness (born of Bilbo Baggins, no doubt) of the Quest...

‘Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it...’
(Goethe)

Poetry is Emotion

Re-echoing the prayer of Dylan Thomas...

‘Read the poems you like reading. Don’t bother whether they’re ‘important’, or if they’ll live. What does it matter what poetry is, after all? If you want a definition of poetry, say:
‘Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing’, and let it go at that. All that matters about poetry is the enjoyment of it, however tragic it may be.’

(The Colour of Saying; Dent 1963)

....that one should read those poems one enjoys reading without reference to the status accredited by others, that may yet not be enough; the Author was, indeed, inspired by the intent of the following, which, as an aside, one might not imagine being politically correct nowadays (but, for fawkes sake, we are to burn that bonfire of vanity, somewhere up the road ahead), it being far too didactic for the modernists in literature...

‘It may be useful...to suggest how they may find and absorb all the manifold beauties of a poem. Such a consummation can only be achieved after many readings, for the joy of great poetry, as of all literature, is that every time we read it we find new interest and new beauties that have escaped us before. To find these beauties and the true significance of literature we must search for them, for, as Ruskin has said, they are hidden away like gold in the earth, and to find them we must work as a gold-miner would.

‘The metal you are in search of being the author’s mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your care, wit and learning; your smelting furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author’s meaning without those tools and that fire; often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before you can gather one grain of the metal.’
(Sopwith, The Companion Poets: Tennyson)
The final lines (throw aways because he’s too smart for any of us) come from Dylan, in belated recognition of the Nobel Prize (Daily Telegraph, October 29, 2016)....
‘He has never, of course, been one to explain his lyrics. ‘I’ll let other people decide what they are,’ he tells me. ‘The academics, they ought to know. I’m not really qualified. I don’t have any opinion...’
When it comes to meaning, Dylan is, it becomes clear, no more keen to explain his paintings than he is his lyrics.
‘Different people read d