Archive for category Adventure

I recently returned to the USA from a sudden but exciting adventure across the pond to the United Kingdom. The goal of the trip was three-fold: to study some unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien (for an article or two in progress), to tour sites related to Owain Glyndwr (for an upcoming book), and to visit the site recently identified as the location of the Battle of Brunanburh.

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Thursday, 21 July 2011

Not quite the roll of adventures today, as most of my time was taken up with the drive from Llangollen to Oxford.

I decided not to stop anywhere, as I’m just about too tired for words. My feet in particular are pretty sore.

I managed to make it back to the car rental place in Oxford without a hitch, and it was raining a good English rain — just like it was on the morning I left. I considered this a good thing since it washed some of the dirt off the car and also made it less likely that the inspector would spend a lot of time looking it over.

The weather did mean that I was walking the mile into the middle of town in rain, but it was all worth it when I arrived at Wadham College and was told that there had been some problem with my room and I’d been upgraded to the “luxury” room at no charge.

Wadham College quad.

Turns out, it’s essentially an apartment (a flat) that would normally be used by a fellow of the college. It is NICE. A huge sitting area with a bay window overlooking the street, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a massive bedroom. I took a number of pictures.

One of rooms at Wadham College.

After a short bit of relaxing, I walked around Wadham College a bit, taking some pictures of the dining hall and chapel. Both are magnificent.

Wadham College dining hall.

Chapel at Wadham College.

Next I took a relaxing walk over to the Pitt Rivers Museum, which I’d never been to before. It’s incredibly eclectic — fossils, rocks, guns, shrunken heads, toys, samurai swords … All just lined up in display cases. And the building is just magnificent. I went just to fill some time, but I had a real blast and I stayed until they kicked me out (politely) at closing. I will be coming back to it soon, I hope.

Then a bit more walking, over past New College to the old city walls this time. And then back to my flat to kick up my feet for a few minutes before I headed down to meet Paul Cavill, one of the Brunanburh contributors.

For dinner we split the tab at Brown’s, which is a nice restaurant. Good food and even better company. Paul is a good guy in addition to being a staggeringly brilliant scholar. What he does to “nail down” Brunanburh in the Casebook is incredible, and he isn’t done with the subject yet!

So it is nearly ten now, and I’ve drawn a hot bath for my aching body. I’ll leave in the morn for Heathrow.

Friday, 22 July 2011

Ah, the trip back. No problems, no worries. Just the long, long haul back across the pond.

Clouds over the USA.

I recently returned to the USA from a sudden but exciting adventure across the pond to the United Kingdom. The goal of the trip was three-fold: to study some unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien (for an article or two in progress), to tour sites related to Owain Glyndwr (for an upcoming book), and to visit the site recently identified as the location of the Battle of Brunanburh.

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Wednesday, 20 July 2011

It is turning 8 now, and I’ve just arrived at the Corn Mill (same as last night) for dinner and a pint. I’m exhausted but exhilerated.

After a hearty breakfast — I knew I was in for a long haul from the get-go — I got in the car and drove just up a nearby tributary valley to Valle Crucis Abbey. It’s a ruined abbey — a lot like Tintern, which my brother has photographed so beautifully — and I hoped that the weather would break and give me some sun on it.

It wasn’t quite open yet when I arrived, so I hiked a short bit up along the side of the road until I found Eliseg’s Pillar out in the middle of a sheep field. (I think just about everything in Wales is in a sheep field.) The pillar is the broken-off bottom of a cross that once stood in the middle of the valley (and gave the nearby abbey it’s name, as a matter of fact — “Abbey of the Valley of the Cross”). It is not admittedly the most impressive thing to look at, but it actually is fairly significant. It had an Insular Latin inscription on it — now eroded away but partially preserved a few hundred years ago — in which the person who raised it claimed to be doing so to honor his grandfather, Eliseg. In so doing, the recorder also makes reference to Vortigern, the man who by some accounts preceded Arthur as king of the Britons. Pretty cool stuff. In addition, Owain’s descent from the carver ( and thus to Eliseg) was one of the genealogical facts that enabled him to claim the throne of Wales.

Eliseg's Pillar.

I recently returned to the USA from a sudden but exciting adventure across the pond to the United Kingdom. The goal of the trip was three-fold: to study some unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien (for an article or two in progress), to tour sites related to Owain Glyndwr (for an upcoming book), and to visit the site recently identified as the location of the Battle of Brunanburh.

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Tuesday, 19 July 2011

Big traveling day today, with multiple stops and a lot of great country.

My first stop was — at last — Machynlleth, where Owain Glyndwr held his first parliament. There’s a fifteenth-century building on the same site (no one is certain if it is the one Owain used) that now houses the official Owain Glyndwr museum and study centre.

Presumed site of Owain's Parliament in Machynlleth.

I recently returned to the USA from a sudden but exciting adventure across the pond to the United Kingdom. The goal of the trip was three-fold: to study some unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien (for an article or two in progress), to tour sites related to Owain Glyndwr (for an upcoming book), and to visit the site recently identified as the location of the Battle of Brunanburh.

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Monday, 18 July 2011

Last night I’d planned a return to the highlands in pursuit of Hyddgen — twisted ankles be damned — based on some additional data I now have in hand. Alas, I awoke to rain (still) and it was clear from the weather maps that it would be far worse up in the mountains I wanted to hike.

So it was on to the back-up plan: a relatively slow day touring Aberystwyth. Not the most glamorous thing to do, I know, and the way I did it was not exactly the most traditional way to do it, either, since my tour was built one or another around Owain Glyndwr, obviously.

The timing of things was driven by the weather. After breakfast the rain was down to a stinging mist, so I hurried as fast as I could to the ruins of Aberystwyth Castle, which Owain captured in his war for Welsh independence. I shot a lot and thought a lot. You know the drill.
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I recently returned to the USA from a sudden but exciting adventure across the pond to the United Kingdom. The goal of the trip was three-fold: to study some unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien (for an article or two in progress), to tour sites related to Owain Glyndwr (for an upcoming book), and to visit the site recently identified as the location of the Battle of Brunanburh.

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Sunday, 17 July 2011

This morning after breakfast (alone again, as I was the only guest) I hiked out to the earthwork remains of Castell Foel-allt, a Norman motte and bailey castle in the valley just behind the Pilleth Oaks.

It was pretty impressive for a not-on-the-map sort of thing. I then spent more time milling around and talking to myself as I took pictures. Add it all together and I am strongly suspicious that every account of the battle I have seen has it incorrect. I can’t see it happening the way they claim.
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I recently returned to the USA from a sudden but exciting adventure across the pond to the United Kingdom. The goal of the trip was three-fold: to study some unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien (for an article or two in progress), to tour sites related to Owain Glyndwr (for an upcoming book), and to visit the site recently identified as the location of the Battle of Brunanburh.

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Saturday, 16 July 2011

Things did not start off well today, as it was raining a good English rain for the mile I marched through Oxford to get to the car rental place.

Then the car rental place would not accept my forms of insurance, forcing me to pay extra for their coverage.

Then the car rental place did not have the navigation unit I prepaid to have.

And then the car rental place ::coughTHRIFTYcough:: said they could do nothing to refund my money since I paid through the US website and not the UK website so I’ll have to take it up with them if I want my fifty pounds back.

Sigh.
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I recently returned to the USA from a sudden but exciting adventure across the pond to the United Kingdom. The goal of the trip was three-fold: to study some unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien (for an article or two in progress), to tour sites related to Owain Glyndwr (for an upcoming book), and to visit the site recently identified as the location of the Battle of Brunanburh.

As a result, the trip was pretty well packed with things to do, so I’ll be breaking up my trip report here into smallish doses. Enjoy!

. . .

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

I am writing this at the Eagle and Child in Oxford, known to many simply as the “Bird and Baby.” It was here that J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the rest of the Inklings would occasionally gather to commune with the muses and to share their works in progress with each other.

I’m here now, drinking a pint of ale from Cornwall. It’s dinner time, and I’m rather hungry as I’ve not eaten since, um, around 9 this morning.

I’ve been busy.
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