After Lord of the Rings was there any mention of the entwives?
Pip Willis, Scullion at the Green Dragon, Bywater (1901-present)
Updated May 31, 2018 · Author has 600 answers and 427.3k answer views
My father went to visit JRRT in 1971 to show him a map of ‘Part of Middle Earth’ my father had drawn, but far more embellished than the ones previously seen or published. The map was about a square yard in size and around the border were miniature paintings of various places, things etc that appeared in the Lord of the Rings. The map now hangs on my father’s living room wall. It was and is a wonderful map and I always gaze at it when I visit (I live in Sydney, my father in Sussex). I can remember my two favourite drawings, the Hornberg and Orthanc. JRRT had a huge fan base at that time and refused most requests to visit. So my father was thrilled to have had his request for a meeting accepted, ostensibly about the map, a copy of which had been sent to the great man! (My brothers and I clamoured to be taken too, but were tersely denied, because my father had spent the previous year slowly reading the Lord of the Rings, a few pages at a time, as an incentive for bed.)
Anyway, at the meeting, my father asked about the Entwives and Tolkien, taking a pencil, marked on the map ‘Here be the Entwives’, just beyond the northern border of the North Farthing, half way to Fornost.
Later Dad inked over the pencil marks, keeping the hand-writing style. And I didn’t think much more about it, until I happened to mention the Map to one of my older brothers, who recalled the above anecdote and I realised how significant it may become - or not!
(I was the youngest of my brothers and only 5 years old in 1970 and used to sneak in to listen to Dad read Lord of the Rings to my older siblings. I didn’t really understand what was going on and I was only tolerated on the condition of silence and it was generally pretended I wasn’t there! But, these are some of my greatest and fondest and thrilling memories, of my father’s deep welsh lilt reading of things such as ‘The Fog on the Barrow Downs’! He even looks like Gandalf!)
Edit.21st May 2017. 10 p.m. AST So, I’ve just put down the phone to my father, from our weekly call. Firstly the good news. Two bits. One, all this did happen and Dad confirmed it. Second, he will try and take a photo on his iphone of the map in general and Tolkien’s reference specifically, he’s 85. The actual words were in fact ‘Here
may be the Entwives.’ [My italics] But the bad news, for which of course I take full responsibility and apologise to all, is it is not where I said it was above, but in fact… on the east bank a southern bow of the Carnen River, flowing into the Sea of Rhun. Fully apologise, I should have checked my sources before publishing! (When will I learn!)
Looks like I was misled by Hal and Ted Sandyman was right - blast him!
Edit 22nd May 2017 3 p.m. AST. So below is a very small part of the map. My father inked over JT’s pencil (knowing my father’s hand-writing as I do, I think he went a bit heavy, the only bit which is definitely not his style is the ‘y’ from ‘may’). My father has yet to send a picture of the whole map as apparently the reflection from the glass is too much, so he will have to take the map down and the glass off etc. I know it sounds crazy, but my father did the map in black ink from a rotring pen and then coloured in with felt tip pens! Where he made mistakes he overlaid with new bits of paper and re-drew. It was a pretty big deal in the early ‘70’s! I have to apologise again for my first edit where I wrote ‘East bank’, but at least I have an excuse, as I’m pretty sure that’s what I was told!
31st May 2018. So, a year later… here’s the map
In its frame
Remember, its all hand drawn, mostly about 1970–71, with rotring pens and felt-tips.
N.E. corner (the Entwives notation to the left of large red ‘Rhun’).
S.E. corner
S.W. corner
N.W. corner
Nice one Dad! (And thanks to all who upvoted.)
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