“IT MAKES ME WEEP TO LEAVE THEM”: THE IMPACT OF THE CHEDDAR GORGE, SOMERSET, CAVE SYSTEM ON THE IMAGINATION OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN

Cheddar Gorge in Somerset County of southwest England was carved into Carboniferous Limestone by snowmelt floods during the Pleistocene periglacial periods. An extensive cave system subsequently formed, and several caverns were used as habitations by Late Paleolithic humans. The modern discovery of the caves dates to the late 19^th century, and two of the most picturesque, Gough’s Cave and Cox’s Cave, are among the most important geological tourist attractions in England. Perhaps the most famous of the caves’ enthusiasts was noted Oxford philologist and fantasy novelist, J.R.R. Tolkien, who first visited the site in 1916 while on his honeymoon. In 1940 he returned to Cheddar Gorge on a family vacation during his early work on The Lord of the Rings, and as he noted in a 1971 letter the visit (and his earlier memories of the caves before their commercialization) led him to pen a detailed description of the fictional Glittering Caves of Aglarond based on these geological features.

Tolkien’s admitted interest in geology led him to include a wide range of geological details in his novels, and numerous papers have attempted to apply real-world geological principles to the features described in his novels and included on his myriad maps (including tectonics, orogeny, volcanism, and limnology). Other works have connected Tolkien’s references to important changes in scientific knowledge over the course of his lifetime (e.g. catastrophism, continental drift, and models of lunar formation). However, despite the well-known connection between Cheddar Caves and Aglarond there has been, to our knowledge, no close reading of the text in parallel with the actual geological features of the caves. This study fills that gap in the scholarship of science and popular media, and highlights the singular attention paid to details of the natural environment that defines Tolkien’s fiction.