Maps

Tolkien’s maps are a delightful addition to his stories, giving a sense of tangible reality to the world of Middle-earth.  Thorin’s map of the Lonely Mountain is an important plot device in The Hobbit, even though the dwarf is initially dismissive of the document, grumbling “I remember the Mountain well enough… And I know where Mirkwood is, and the Withered Heath where the great dragons bred.”   Yet upon this reading of the story, I was particularly drawn to a passing reference to other maps.  Bilbo “loved maps, and in his hall there hung a large one of the Country Round with all his favorite walks marked on it in red ink.” 

D.M. Cornish

Today maps are technological magic, shifting digital matrixes.  Yet old maps – paper or parchment maps – still have a kind of power over some of us.  Maps are memory.  Maps are the world, remade, and yet abstracted.  Did Bilbo have other maps at Bag End?  Might he have marked not only walks, but places that were suited for smoking pipes, or snacking, or daydreaming?  Did he have star charts?  Did he ever map the fleeting clouds? 

What wild and secret destinations might we find, if only we dared to chart and map ourselves?  Upon the winding trails of our minds and our dreams, would we mark the places where dragons breed, where elves sing beneath the stars, or where our hearts most wish to linger?
 

 

 

First Image: The fictional city of Brandenbrass, by D.M. Cornish.  Buy his books!  Or at least visit his blog...

http://monsterbloodtattoo.blogspot.com/2012/12/brandenbrass-or-there-was-time-once_11.html

Second Image: A “map” of cracked stone.