ok i went to the coooooooolest place...!

[Laurenis]

oh man on monday me and my mom went to her friend Cherie's house. and Cherie lives in this little village near Hull this dock city in north east england and the village is called Roos. well Cherie was telling me all these old legends and rumours in Roos about how J.R.R. Tolkien lived there for a while during the war or something like that. its all in the old village records. well first i think i should say that Roos is a really really really really old classical english village. its really small, out in the countryside. which ever direction you look in it's grassy fields and farmer trackers. theres lots of farms around the area and always people around on horses. its really a magical place. everyone knows each other inside out and there's old english pubs on every street corner.

well anyway back to my story... yeh i went to Roos and Cherie was telling me all about this Tolkien stuff. and we went to this wood in the village. it was really beautiful. just imagine... a lovely little church ontop of a hill, steps leading upto it. the sun is shining. snowdrops are in bloom all over the ground. to your left is a thick wood, hemlock and all.

well we went to the wood and Cherie told me that there used to be deer living there and there are underground passages from some of the houses near the wood, that go all the way to the church. they were from medival times or something and the priests used them for some reason i dont really remember...

well Cherie told me that rumours have it that Tolkien used this magical wood as an inspiration for some places in middle earth. i was thinking that because he lived in Roos in 1917/1918 this could be possible beacuse that's when he was writing the books.

ive been doing research all day and ive found some awesome stuff... Tolkien DID live in Roos for a while AND he spent alot of time in that wood... this is some info that i found on the www:

---Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, although periods of remission enabled him to do home service at various camps sufficiently well to be promoted to lieutenant. It was when he was stationed at Hull that he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and there in a grove thick with hemlock Edith danced for him. This was the inspiration for the tale of Beren and Lúthien, a recurrent theme in his "Legendarium". He came to think of Edith as "Lúthien" and himself as "Beren". ---

how cool is that!!!
i just thought you guys might want to know... it really was a magical place. and its a really cool thing to think about; u know ive been in that wood and walked exactly where he did!

---Ren