The Prancing Pony

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Variations of the name tag

The Prancing Pony also The Prancing Pony Inn or Inn of the Prancing Pony is the name of a fictional inn from the book The Lord of the Rings by the English writer JRR Tolkien . In the German translation, the inn is called “Zum Tänzierenden Pony” and is a meeting place for numerous travelers who stop in the city of Bree .

The Prancing Pony Inn

In the story The Lord of the Rings , the inn in Bree plays a central role in the encounter between the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin with Aragorn on their way to Mordor. The inn was built at a time when the roads between the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor were still busy and traveled by traders. It had been in the Butterblum family for generations. Despite the declining visitor numbers, it was still a popular meeting place for humans, hobbits and dwarves who brought news from the distant regions of Middle-earth to here. The magician Gandalf also visited this house at times and the Dúnedain of the north always had a watchful eye and an open ear for everything that happened there. Gandalf left a letter there, which, however, was not forwarded to Frodo in the Shire as requested by the owner of the restaurant, so that Frodo only received it when he himself arrived in Bree. Here the hobbits met Streicher, a ranger who later turned out to be Aragorn and accompanied them from then on.

background

During his studies in Oxford, when Tolkien lived in Northmoor Road in 1939/1940, he revised some passages of the chapter "In the inn to the prancing pony" for his story The Lord of the Rings . Some inspirations from his living environment should have found their way into the history and in particular the appearance of the city of Bree. The description of the “Prancing Pony” shows similarities with the inn “The Bell Inn” in Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire . There is also a multitude of other similarities with this place.

Comparison of inns

The Bell Inn, Moreton-in-Marsh

Both buildings have a three-story construction; The hobbits found this size and unusual construction of the “Prancing Pony” strange and yet it made an inviting impression on them with its front facing the road and the two wings built into the slopes of the mountain.

The "Bell Inn" is also a stone building with three floors, many windows and a large archway that leads into the inner courtyard between the wings and with former stables. The former entrance, which, like the “Prancing Pony”, led from there into the building, has now been walled up and replaced by an entrance to Fosse Way .

Comparison of the localities

Bree is described as a place that on the one hand nestled against the Breeberg and on the other hand was protected on the open side by a high hedge and a moat with two entrance gates. In addition, there were more than a hundred stone houses in the small village that were inhabited by people. The local hobbits lived in caves on the slopes of the Breeberg.

The houses in the town of Moreton-in-Marsh are also mostly stone buildings. There are also gates and a tower that could be used to monitor the night curfew when the gates were closed. In Bree this tower will be replaced by the goalkeeper's house. Bree was at an old crossroads and right on the former main thoroughfare of Oststrasse, which ran just outside the wall.

Moreton-in-Marsh is also at such a strategically important point, the former Roman road (Fosse Way), which also comes from the northeast and leads to the southwest. This meets the old road in Moreton-in-Marsh that runs from the north to the south, i.e. from Oxford to Worcester.

The "Prancing Pony" was a meeting point for all large and small travelers from the former areas of Minhiriath, Cardolan, Rhudaur, Arthedain (with Eriador and the Shire), ie the entire catchment area of ​​the former Kingdom of Arnor . The landlord had come from the Buttercup family for generations and was called Gerstenmann.

Moreton-in-Marsh is also in an area where four counties meet: Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire , Worcestershire and Warwickshire .

Further surroundings
In addition, there are further parallels in Tolkien's descriptions and drawings of the surroundings of Bree and the actual conditions around Moreton-in-Marsh, such as the "Three-Farthing Stone", the Barrow Downs or the White Towers the Tower Mountains in the Shire and the real "Four Shire Stone", the " Rollright Stones " and the " Broadway Tower ".

reception

Under the name The Prancing Pony or the respective translations into other languages, restaurants, bars, pubs and inns around the world have been named after this model.

German-speaking area

  • A restaurant in Kaichen for the prancing pony .

English speaking area

Spanish speaking area

Others

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b J. RR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings. 1 volume. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-608-93830-2 , pp. 175-190.
  2. ^ Caroline McGuire: Cotswolds pub that inspired The Hobbit makes a great weekend break. In: The Sun. Retrieved June 2, 2018, May 18, 2019 (UK English).
  3. ↑ a b c d The Prancing Pony by Barliman Butterbur (PDF; 2.2 MB) on adcbooks.co.uk, accessed June 11, 2013.
  4. ↑ Robert Foster: The Great Middle Earth Lexicon. Bastei Lübbe, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-404-20453-3 , pp. 113/114.
  5. ↑ Robert Foster: The Great Middle Earth Lexicon. Bastei Lübbe, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-404-20453-3 , p. 746.
  6. ↑ Prancing Pony on bigreddirectory.com, accessed on June 11, 2013.
  7. ↑ Prancing Pony Pub & Stables Restaurant ( August 29, 2017 memento on the Internet Archive ) on rivendalecaravanpark.co.uk, accessed June 11, 2013.
  8. ↑ Lugares tolkiendili on elponeypisador.com, accessed on June 11, 2013. (Overview: El Poney Pisador )
  9. ↑ El Poney Pisador on elponeypisadorsalamanca.com, accessed May 18, 2019.
  10. ↑ El Pony Pisador on lonelyplanet.com, accessed on February 10, 2016.
  11. ↑ Lord of the Rings - At the Sign of the Prancing Pony on classic-castle.com, accessed June 11, 2013.