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After many decades of meticulous research (cut and pasted from a couple of websites) the true story of Farthingloe and the valley can be revealed.
Shortly after being appointed Reader in English Language at Leeds University in 1920, Professor J R R Tolkien, in association with E V Gordon, he began work on a celebrated translation of the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. During the summer vacation in 1921, Tolkien holidayed in Dover, staying with family friends at Little Farthingloe Farm a couple of miles out of the town on the Folkestone Road. One day Tolkien and his wife, Edith, were taking a walk up one of the hills to enjoy the view towards the famous Dover Castle when he slipped on some wet grass and dislodged a section of soil.
Much to his surprise, he noticed a circular wooden section buried just under the ground. Thinking, at first, that it might be a very large Saxon shield, Professor Tolkien carefully worked his way around its edges in the hopes of dislodging it. It was then that he noticed the rusted the remains of two finely worked hinges on one side and an ornate doorknob on the other.
Using a service knife he had carried with him since his service in the trenches of the Somme during the great War where he had served as a Second Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers, he gently worked around the edges of what he then realised was a door and pried it open. Behind it, he discovered a round tunnel with a flag stoned level floor. The space was large enough to crawl into and, with some trepidation, Tolkien stooped down and entered. Edith could only wonder how nervous he was at that moment, remembering the description of his Somme experiences which he had described in one of his letters as trying to write "... in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candle light in bell-tents, even some down in dugouts under shell fire".
Once inside Tolkien discovered that it had once been a network of rooms leading off the main entrance but that most had then collapsed. He was carefully backing out when he saw the corner of a beautifully carved wood chest poking out from a wall of soil and chalk. It only took him a few minutes to remove the chest but what he was to discover inside would consume him for the rest of his life.
The chest turned out, when husband and wife later examined it in the comfort of their bedroom, to contain a sizeable collection of papers, faded with age but still legible.
It would take Tolkien another three years to translate the language, using all his free time and the resources of the Leeds University, and then, for fear of damaging his academic reputation, he could only make it public by incorporating it into his fiction.
From references in the many letters and notes, which comprised the documents he had discovered, Tolkien uncovered the truth behind legends going back to 1395 AD and previously known only to one Matilda de Ffarnynglo. From long study of the treasured documents he found that the almost mythical creatures that Matilda had insisted on calling "little ones" had preferred to call themselves Hobbits and that they had lived under the hills for longer than those who called themselves mankind had been cutting down their forests and ploughing up their land. Through many references in the documents to the doings of the writers neighbours Tolkien learned of past wars and great quests fought or undertaken by his fellow Hobbits.
Using what he learnt, Tolkien told their story in four books and many short stories and, from correspondence with his family friends in Dover, he learnt that the Hobbits still lived in their round houses keeping out of sight of the humans they did not trust. Occasionally, on clear nights with a bright moon, some people still catch glimpses of these elusive but noble creatures, it would be nice to hear from those who have seen them recently.
The original documents still sit in the vaults of Leeds University awaiting proper indexing and further study.
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