The Real Glittering Caves

[Eledhwen]

Tolkien said that The Glittering Caves of Helm's Deep were inspired by the Cheddar Caves in Somerset, England.

When we visited the caves last week, we found a thinly disguised Tolkien theme in Cox's cave - changing the names to avoid copyright issues, eg: Mordon for Mordor. Children are invited by a static model, looking remarkably like Cate Blanchett, to go on the quest of the Golden Dragon and save the world. Here are some images from that quest...

 

[Eledhwen]

two more images

Ist: The quest had a gollum-type creature too.

2nd: The terrible carnage of the battle.

 

[Eledhwen]

And here's what the caves are really about...

1. A limescale cascade inside Gough's cave

2. A still pool inside Cox's cave

"And, Legolas, when the torches are kindled and men walk on the sandy floors under the echoing domes, ah! then, Legolas, gems and crystals and veins of precious ore glint in the polished walls; and the light glows through folded marbles shell-like, translucent as the living hand of Queen Galadriel. There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose, Legolas, fluted and twisted into dreamlike forms; they spring up from many-coloured floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof: wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them: a glimmergin world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass; cities such as the mind of Durin could scarce have imagined in his sleep, stretch on through avenues and pillared courts, on into the dark recesses where no light can come. And plink! a silver drop falls, and the round wrinkles in the glass make all the towers bend and waver like weekds and corals in a grotto of the sea."

Tolkien's imagination expanded the caves wondrously, but the source of the Glittering Caves is still a beautiful sight.

 

[Eledhwen]

"We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them." said Gimli, but recent health and safety regulations mean that today's visitors to the caves must walk on concrete, non-slip paths, not the milky limestone made uneven (and therefore unsafe) by stalagmites.

Fortunately, caving expeditions are organised for those who wish to crawl through to see the "chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock."

The attachment is a limestone formation photo, 1 with flash and 1 without (hence the orangey glow of the tungsten lighting).

 

[Aragorn21]

Wow, that's amazing! Now I know where I want to go in England.