Myth upon myth (From Malvern Gazette)

Myth upon myth

8:48am Friday 4th January 2013 in Letters

 MAY I be permitted to point out a number of myths that have appeared in recent issues of the Malvern Gazette.

C S Lewis never stated that any specific gas lamp in Malvern inspired the one in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, or by the way, that the wardrobe in that story had anything to do with Great Malvern Priory.

In those days, gas lamps were everywhere.

Certainly, while at school in Malvern, the hills above reminded Lewis of the Mountains of Mourne in Ireland, near to his childhood home and of course gas lamps in the snow look magical anywhere.

There is no evidence to show that the Malvern Hills inspired Tolkien to create The Hobbit’s Middle Earth.

The Hobbit was published in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings conceived long before Tolkien’s visit to George Sayer’s house in 1952.

George Sayer, who was head of English at Malvern College, remembered that while walking with him on the hills, Tolkien seemed to relive sections of The Hobbit and stated that parts of the Malvern Hills reminded him of how, way back in the 1930s, he had imagined the White Mountains of Gondor.

And finally, as instigator and project manager of the Walenty Pytel sculpture in Rosebank Gardens, may I correct the wrong impression being given that the buzzards are fighting or aggressive.

Walenty says they are “playing and soaring together” or if you prefer, coming in to land on their nest.

PETER SMITH

Malvern