History of Middle-earth: Tolkien’s Swiss Inspiration

Map of the Misty Mountains, by Christopher Tolkien

HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH: TOLKIEN’S SWISS INSPIRATION

In the summer of 1911, J.R.R. Tolkien hiked the peaks and valleys of the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland when he was 19 years old. These Alps and their valleys had a profound impact on Tolkien’s imagination, as he wrote when he was 74 to his son Michael in 1967, fifty-six years after he visited Switzerland:

“I am […] delighted that you have made the acquaintance of Switzerland, and of the very part that I once knew best and which had the deepest effect on me. The hobbit’s (Bilbo’s) journey from Rivendell to the other side of the Misty Mountains, including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods, is based on my adventures in 1911. the journey had left many vivid pictures ‘as clear as yesterday’… that is as clear as an old man’s remoter memories become.”

What did Tolkien see in this part of Switzerland, the “top of Europe,” what was he later inspired to sub-create in Middle-earth as a result of his month of hiking in the Alps?

Tolkien’s Hike: from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen

Tolkien and Hikers in the Alps, from Tolkien’s Gedling: The Birth of a Legend, by Andrew H. Morton and John Hayes. Image: The One Ring

The summer before he began his studies in Oxford, along with a dozen dwarves – I mean hikers (Tolkien later called himself “a hobbit” among them) – his somewhat eccentric aunt led the excursion. They set off from Interlaken, from the train station between two lakes. (Tolkien scholars believe this inspired The Hobbit‘s Esgaroth, or Lake-Town.) They hiked on foot, carried heavy packs, avoided roads, and slept under the stars.

It was not until they descended into Lauterbrunnen that they could stay in a hotel. South of Lauterbrunnen is the Obersteinberg Hotel, in the valley below the mountain village of Mürren, at over 5,000 feet above sea level. There, he signed the guest book on Saturday, August 5, 1911.

Map of Tolkien’s likely route

When I visited Mürren recently, I watched paragliders sail from there to the valley floor below.

Paraglider at Mürren. Author’s photo

From Mürren, a cable car takes you to Schilthorn and the rotating Piz Gloria restaurant at the top, featured in the James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The view from Mürren is breathtaking, especially of the Three Peaks…

Schilthorn Peak and Piz Gloria. Author’s photo

…but I’m getting ahead of my story. Here are four locations that inspired locations in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Tolkien’s Lautherbrunnen: Rivendell

Lauterbrunnen Valley

Lauterbrunnen is the primary village in the area and is situated at the foot of a deep valley surrounded by steep mountains, cliffs, and waterfalls. There are 72 waterfalls there, some inside the mountains. In Peter Jackson’s film version of The Fellowship of the Rings, Rivendell is surrounded by waterfalls.

For Tolkien, this later became Rivendell, which in English comes from two roots: “deeply cleft” + “valley”. Indeed, even his Elvish name for Rivendell, Imladris, means “deep valley of the cleft”.

Tolkien’s drawing of Rivendell

In Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Rings, he describes a river that flows along Rivendell. In Elvish, it’s called the “Bruinen.” The nickname is the “Loudwater.” Or Loud(er) + Bruinen.

In The Hobbit, as Bilbo and the Dwarves approach Rivendell, Tolkien describes it thus:

“Shadows had fallen in the valley below, but there was still a light on the faces of the mountains far above. The air was warm. The sound of running and falling water was loud, and the evening air was filled with a faint scent of trees and flowers, as if summer still lingered in Elrond’s gardens.”

They had arrived at the Elves’ hidden sanctuary, the Last Homely House East of the Sea.

Bernese Alps: The Misty Mountains

Bernese Alps. Author’s photo

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
to dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day
To claim our long-forgotten gold…
– Sung by Thorin, from The Hobbit

As Tolkien looked up from Lauterbrunnen, he would have seen, through the clouds, the Three Peaks rising majestically above the valley. They are, in German, the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Jungfrau. In English, they’re called the Ogre, the Monk, and the Maiden. The legend says the Monk protects the Maiden from the Ogre.

Three Peaks: Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau

For Tolkien, they became the prominent peaks of the Misty Mountains: Caradras, Celebdil, and Fanuidhol, or Cloudyhead.

Only once before have I seen them from afar in waking life, but I know them and their names, for under them lies Khazad-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, that is now called the Black Pit, Moria in the Elvish tongue. Yonder stands Barazinbar, the Redhorn, cruel Caradhras; and beyond him are Silvertine and Cloudyhead: Celebdil the White, and Fanuidhol the Grey, that we call Zirak-zigil and Bundushathûr.  – Spoken by Gimli, from The Fellowship of the Ring.

Three Peaks of The Misty Mountains

Map of Three Peaks above Lauterbrunnen

Tolkien may have taken the cog railway from Lauterbrunnen to Kleine Scheidegg, a mountain pass toward his subsequent destination, north east to the next valley over, Grindelwald and Meiringen. (Coincidentally, Meiringen is famous for the nearby Reichenbach Falls, the setting for the fictional presumed death of Sherlock Holmes in the novel The Final Problem.) At the time, the Jungfrau Railway, the highest railway in Europe, was being built.

Since 1912, from Kleine Scheidegg, you can take the Jungfrau Railway to the “top of Europe,” the glacial saddle between Mönch and Jungfrau, to visit shops and restaurants. This location, called Jungfraujoch, is at 11,332 feet and is also home to the Sphinx Observatory, one of the highest observatories in the world.

The Jungfrau is indeed a “cloudy head.” I took the train to the top, and there was zero visibility; it was clouded over.

Whiteout, at Cloudytop, Jungfraujoch. Author’s photo

But I waited 20 minutes, and the clouds cleared to a spectacular view.

Clear view of Jungfrau from Jungfraujoch. Author’s photo

The Jungfrau itself is home to another daughter mountain, the Silberhorn, and formed in Tolkien’s imagination the Celebdil, the vast peak upon which the endless stair ends, and a battle between wizard Gandalf and the “Spirit of fire” demon is finished, with Gandalf smiting the Balrog on the mountainside. Tolkien is quoted as saying:

“I left the view of Jungfrau with deep regret, and the Silberhorn sharp against deep blue.”

Trümmelbach Falls: The Mines of Moria

One of the Ten Trümmelbach Falls. Author’s photo

Though Tolkien did not mention it explicitly, he would have hiked right in front of it on his journey along the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

It is a series of 10 waterfalls that cascade down inside the mountain from the melting glaciers above. It is the largest glacier-fed waterfall in Europe. As you climb the stairs to the top, you are surrounded by the sound of dripping water and the rush of the falls (in the Spring, when the glaciers melt). And the stairs are dark, gray, black, and wet.

I was reminded, as I climbed, with thoughts of the Stairs of Khazad-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, the dwarf-delving Mines of Moria. In The Fellowship of the Rings, the other side of the Misty Mountains lies the Dimrill Dale, the valley beneath the Peaks and the Dimrill Stair, the source of the Silverlode River.

Trümmelbach Stairs: Stairs of Khazad-dûm? Author’s photo

From the Trümmelbach Falls, as they exit the mountain, flows the Weiss Lüschine River, which travels through the Lauterbrunnen Valley. It overflows its banks about once a year, as the Bruinen did to unhorse the Black Riders to prevent them from entering Rivendell in The Fellowship of the Rings.

Conclusion

I have a friend who visits this area every year. He says that it is the closest thing to heaven on earth. I believe him.

See Part 2: Tolkien’s English Inspirations here

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com