Part four: Middle Earth weekend
Each year in May, Birmingham's Sarehole Mill became “Middle Earth” in celebration of J.R.R. Tolkien and the time he spent in the area as a young boy. This clip visited the 2012 Middle Earth Weekend, which marked the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit's first publishing. Sadly the Middle Earth Weekend has been discontinued.
Video Transcription
Welcome to the Middle Earth Weekend in the heart of Tolkien Country in Birmingham, England. Okay, this is Sarehole Mill on the edge of Birmingham, in the Hall Green district, it's a working water mill that would have been active at the time Tolkien was here, it dates back to the sixteenth - seventeenth century.
It's all about recognising the influence the area had on Tolkien's writings in particular, the mill and Moseley Bog he used as the basis of some of the aspects of his stories.
I'm dressed as a woodland elf, typical of the sort of characters that Tolkien wrote about in his books. In this particular case I've got a beard which isn't normal for elves, but I'm a half-elf so I get it from the human side!
Since Sarehole first started celebrating Tolkien, we've been coming here and it's grown and grown and more and more people come in costume which makes it more of an event for the children to see as well, and let's just hope it carries on for many years to come.
Well, I think it's very important for the city of Birmingham that there's an event like this that links up with Tolkien because he's a world figure.
I think it celebrates a local author. Stratford's got Shakespeare, we've got Tolkien - we should be proud of him.
I think it's a fantastic connection, it's not the sort of thing you think of for Birmingham really, is it? A lot of the time you think it's very industrial but it's fantastic to come to something like this it's an absolute credit to Birmingham.
Well to think that something so close to you could've inspired something so big, I mean it's a global phenomenon.
I dressed as Seredic today, because he's one of the only ones that doesn't have a beard in The Hobbit, so I thought I'd come as a younger character from the book.
My favourite character is probably the one I'm dressed as, which is the Lady Goldberry, which is the wife of Tom Bombadill, who didn't get into the films, but still brilliant.
I come from Halesowen which is in Birmingham, and to have a place like this, Sarehole Mill, which is so important to Tolkien, and inspired him in so many ways, it's wonderful. I think it appeals to everybody, because it's the good against evil, and the triumph of the good. My favourite character is Aragorn, I really like him, I don't know why, he just appeals to me, he's so cool, and he gets the best looking bird in the end, so you know hats off to him really!
Honestly I think Tolkien would have been slightly perplexed at the fascination with his works, I don't think Tolkien realised just how amazing his works are, his creations.
I'm Tom Bombadill, that's my lady wife there. I actually read the books before I saw the films not like these heathens!
You shall not pass!
Hello, I'm Arwen, I'm here because I'm one of the volunteers for the weekend, and this has been our thirteenth year. It's been a brilliant year again, we're lucky now the weather's gone nice and we're very, very pleased with the way it's going. We try and keep it as a friendly, fun day, for families and the people just enjoy it so much they come back again and we get new people every year, and we get people from all over the world as well. We had someone from the USA yesterday, Liverpool - came down especially for the day, and people from all over Europe, come down for the weekend. I'm proud of Birmingham for a start, but I'm also very proud of the fact that Birmingham's got the connection it has with Tolkien, and that we should really make more of it.
My friends suggested that I should dress up as Gandalf and I wasn't certain what to do, but when I sort of read up and actually walked on the field I realised how much Gandalf was a great part of The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien, you know, and everything about it was just... it made me realise that all these families and children were actually almost placing their hope in Gandalf, like and you know, to stand against the powers of darkness, if you like. They just want photos taken with me and the touching part was a little boy one day just came up to me and said can I walk alongside of you? And he just sighed a sigh of relief and he said "You're my hero" and that just meant so much and from that day on, I just could not... I was compelled to come as Gandalf. You shall not pass!
I really like the giant spider.
Why?
Because I like how spiders are normally really little and that one is like really big.
[Fight scene and shouting]
It's just a collection of people having fun. Tolkien's a good excuse, it's nice to do it in the area that inspired him. We've actually come from Kinver, which is about three quarters of an hour's drive away. And we've got rock houses there which we think inspired the Hobbit holes, because they're cut into the sides of cliffs.
I'm a member of the Isengard smials, that's S-M-I-A-L, so that's one of the local groupings of the Tolkien society. So there's lots of groupings throughout the country, throughout the world in fact, and they've each got their own name. So this is Isengard, the local one that meets in Birmingham once a month, for good food and good cheer and good company. I guess it's a time for everybody to get together meet other fans, look at some fun fancy dresses, look at some of the craftwork and share thoughts about the books, perhaps, read stories, hear stories and poems from the books and learn a bit about Tolkien's Birmingham. Because although all the action is in New Zealand, and everybody thinks about New Zealand for Lord of the Rings, of course it really began here in Moseley in Birmingham.
The Tolkien festival is just my kind of place, you know. Celebratory, friendly, interesting, interested, curious, you know, lively, fun, it's a really, really good atmosphere for a festival.
